WHAT IF LIFE WERE LIKE DRIVING A BUS…?
I often wonder how to handle the less pleasant people, situations, and things that come into my life. Knowing how to deal with life’s little annoyances is key to maintaining balance.
My good friend, psychologist and Mindfulness coach Joe Flanders sent me the following article of his on the topic.
He calls it the life-as-a-bus-metaphor.
“Imagine that you are the driver of a bus (the bus of your life). Whenever you have an experience, passengers get on the bus, whether you like it or not. Some are pleasant, some are unpleasant. You may want the pleasant ones to sit in front and the unpleasant ones to go to the back and remain quite, but it rarely pans out that way.
Sometimes, when you choose to drive toward what’s important to you, some of the unpleasant passengers become upset; they come up to the front and start demanding that you change course.
You can argue with them, but they usually fight back even stronger and the conflict escalates. In the meantime, the bus isn’t moving.
Alternatively, you can give in to their demands and go their way, so they calm down. But now, the unpleasant passengers control the direction of the bus. As soon as you try to head back in the direction that’s important to you, they attack you again, and so on.
Lastly, you can notice all the passengers, invite them along for the ride continue driving the bus in the direction you want to go. In the end, the unpleasant passengers can be pretty annoying when they come to the front of the bus, but they don’t know how to drive, so they never take the wheel.
Which would you choose?”
You can check out Joe’s website at :
Mindfulness-Based Tools for Valued Living
http://mindspaceclinic.com/services/mindfulness/mbtvl/