Upon returning home from my run encountering the small dogs, came the arrival of my yoga buddies. Shortly after I began teaching our backyard session, a bee found me in what he considered to be his territory. Again, much like the small dogs, he didn't seem to want to leave me alone. He lingered long enough to interrupt our session, buzz in my ears, face, and chest. Eventually he left, and the session went on. Not more than two hours later as Micah and I hiked to Waterfalls Canyon in Ogden I encountered bee number TWO. He was more frustrating than the first, this time heading for my mouth, nose, and any other body orifice he could find. He left, just as the first, but not without the struggle and irritation.
Two small dogs, two buzzing bees, one day. I can only think of one word to describe the dogs and the bees - ANNOYING. No other word quite captures the essence of what these creatures present to me. Neither post any real threat or danger. After all what is the worst they could do? Bite or sting. A dog bite and bee sting are easily overcome in the bigger scheme of things. But as I come to ponder a bit on the dogs and bees in our life, I'd like to compare it to experience.
There are all types of experience - fun, enlightening, peaceful, thrilling, loving, kind, gentle, exciting, passionate, dramatic, frightening, upsetting, awful. Some of these experiences we seek for over and over, others we avoid like the black plague. I realized that in the past few years I have become more open to inviting experience rather than avoid, to seize the moment the watch the clock. This has produced a lot of wonderful things in my life, swinging from a trapeze, baking lots of cookies, teaching lots of yoga, marrying someone really great. But all that said there are experiences probably daily that seem to exist only to take me off my path. Perhaps like the dog or bee they are there to veer my off the task at hand. Such experiences do not seem to hold any profound truth, hold any earth shattering epiphanies, teach an impactful lessons, or tell any amazing stories. They seem to exist simply to annoy.
Sometimes I try to avoid annoying experience. Oftentimes I expend much more energy in the avoiding of it that the pain of experiencing it. And after all if I would have avoided such experience today I would have missed out on a beautiful run, a peaceful yoga session, and amazing hike to waterfall. Avoiding annoying experience sometimes leads to missing out on the breathtaking experience just around the corner.
Sometimes the annoying experience is annoying people. Yes, they exist in a plethora of ways, but they don't really always have our annoyance as their goal. They might actually, like the dogs and bees, be acting out of fear for their territory, ego in their bark, or revenge in their sting. But they can't do much more than a small bite or sting which can't do much to damage us permanently.
Annoying experiences are just that - annoying. I am pretty certain they aren't going away anytime soon, they have their place in life. I have decided however that I will not give in to the energy it demands to avoid them, the thought it takes to analyze them, the frustration it takes to encounter. I just accept them, annoying and all. Isn't life great?
