A Clean Slate

Have you ever wondered what your life was before? Before what you might ask? Before everything. Before the frustrations, the disappointments, the regrets, the anger, the resentments, the planning, the stress. Before the running to work, the hurrying of the meal, the shuttling of kids to infinite after school activities. Before the sleepless nights, the anxieties, the being late, and the list goes on.

We were all born into this world without any of these fears or negative emotions or worries. We were born with a clean slate. Think of it like a white eraser board. Clean, pure, unmarked. Then over time slowly we mark the board. Sometimes with a black color, sometimes with red, green, blue, yellow or purple. All colors indicative of various outpouring of emotions. We make streaks, squiggles, lines, curves, writings, waves, shapes, pictograms, alphabets, numerals. These may represent various activities done in our lifetimes. In the end we have a brilliant mess of colors and configurations. If we are too close to the board we see random colorful shapes. Chaotic at best. Much like when we are in the throws of our lives running from moment to moment without thinking just doing. It may seem chaos at first, with feelings of madness. If we step away and look at the entire eraser board we see the border of the board and within it you can see an abstract colorful image. To each person like art, the beauty of it is in the eye of the beholder. So to each person their dry eraser board may look beautiful or a horrible mess. In any event we can reflect on a lifetime of achievements that represent the entire picture.

 What you think of your dry eraser board is entirely up to you. Do you see it with not enough interlinked squiggles or not enough maintained relationships? Do you see too many red colors  or too much anger? Do you see enough straight lines or too much on the career oriented path? Do you see too many shapes or too many confusing thoughts? Or do you see your board fairly white and clean acquired from a path of purity and clarity undertaken through a lifetime of understanding, patience and acceptance or forgiveness? Do you perceive your board as wholesome full of organized shapes, pictograms, alpha numerals from a life of orchestrated plans and actions? 

Sometimes as you try to erase lines or shapes, or rather erase bad memories, or emotions, there still is a faint hint of the prior line or shape if it is not removed immediately. Have you ever tried removing these markings months or years later, it is very difficult, requiring multiple attempts with the dry eraser or other cleaning solutions. So too is this analogy applicable in life. It may take up to a life time to remove the negative emotions, the mistrust, the stresses, the fears and like preconceived notions very hard to erase. But they can be wiped out, with patience, with dedication and forgiveness and letting go of your fears. Through understanding, meditation and living in the moment as if you were there consciously and purposefully making an appropriate marking, like an artist painting a canvas, creatively allowing each stroke to eventually fill up the canvas to its complete potential and art is born.

In the end you may end up with a beautiful and artful board resulting from a purposeful and successful life. We all are longing for a time when things were simpler, when life was simpler, a cleaner slate if you will. We can achieve this. The markers are in your hand and you are the person making the lines, shapes or pictograms. But remember the eraser is also in your hand and if you are on purpose you may have less to erase, but if you must erase, then erase quickly before the ink has time to dry and you are stuck with an uphill task of removal of negative qualities.

Can you feel your white board getting cleaner?