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Light-hearted Truisms by Vernon Howard
     With all the bad and scary news people see and hear these days, here is a little levity to break the hypnotic spell, heaviness and wrong seriousness.
     1. When an unknown telephone caller starts by saying your name, beware of all that follows.
     2. People who are late always pretend to be surprised by it.
     3. You are boring someone when he looks at you and says “Is that so?”
     4. When you get a cold everyone knows what you should do about it.
     5. People tell you they have no ulterior motive, which has an unterior motive.
     6. You can’t win. Even if you get into the shortest line at the supermarket the woman in front of you will have a           basket full of groceries, coupons, food stamps and a check to cash.
     7. People like to say that chocolate is bad for you and most of them eat chocolate.
     8. You should be careful when asking people how they feel because some of them will actually tell you.
     Remember, a word to the wise is sufficient.

How to End Suffering — Irritation

     The commentary series below is focused on a particular negative emotion, painful feeling, negative trait or  state of human beings that causes us tremendous pain and suffering. Perhaps you will recognize that you yourself have had personal experience with this condition. You’ll find the explanation of how it causes suffering and how it produces detrimental effects in your daily life. You will also be shown how Truth can help you to lessen these effects and how you can eventually eliminate them from your life altogether. A new negative characteristic of human nature will be gone into each month. It will be great fun to explore these things in order to help us see through them and to be rid of them.
IRRITATION by Katherine Pascal
     When I arrive early to my doctor’s appointment, the doctor keeps me waiting beyond the appointment time. I am bombarded by dragon thoughts. Why me? Why can’t people keep their appointments? What a maddening world to live in. Is it wrong to be early? Turning to these dragon thoughts for answers, I discover no answer at all. By seeing and separating from these thoughts, I will find that all these thoughts are false. These irritable dragons have no meaning in a higher life. Wanting a higher power to be in charge of my life, these creepy crawly invaders no longer cause me endless suffering.
     I must see events as facts and not exasperations. When someone makes a promise and breaks his word, that’s a fact. At work the meal wagon is on vacation on the very day they bring my favorite meal. A fact. My mental addition of self-defeating thoughts produces an annoyed, grumpy me. This is a fact. There is a higher way to react. I can stop, watch, and realize that adding resentful cross-thoughts is the problem. Being cantankerous is not doing something about the difficulty. Seeing the blundering me interfering with the problem is the Higher Way.
     Irritation is a valuable study. I can investigate my body at the moment I am irritated and see the harm it’s causing. My face is strained; my movements are erratic, jerky. My neck is stiff. I am unaware. I can be aware and free myself to engage fully in the next moment. I can catch huffy reactions, watch them, drop them. What an opportunity to just say NO and regain my life at that moment.
     I am enchanted with Vernon’s principle of easy flow. Irritation is blockage; it interrupts life’s stream. It is an obstacle. Where did I get the idea that I know how everything should work in my world? Has life ever always gone my way all the time? I can just let life happen anyway it wants without cross and irritable me ruining life’s flow. By letting go of the grouchy me, I can live a relaxed life.
     We can work to get rid of all our irritations. The coffee pot stops working. I order a rye bread sandwich and get whole wheat. The phone call I expect is delayed. My favorite market closes. Despite anything that happens, I need never be lost in irritability. It’s always right to see what’s wrong. That’s Success! It’s fun to see what’s wrong because we know that seeing is freeing. We want to wake up to a new life that can handle all events easily, perfectly, painlessly. Just as our physical wounds heal through a natural process put in place by God, we can allow God to enter our lives to heal the mind, emotions and spirit. Thank you, Vernon Howard.