Finding My Place: Right Alongside Everything Else

Moving past self-centeredness is the cornerstone of human evolution

I woke this morning craving a breakfast sandwich and a coffee.

But there was something that made this craving different, and impossible to fulfill: I wanted to have it with someone I care for, a partner. To stand in the kitchen, both of our hair a mess from sleeping. Stumbling around but happy, together. This isn’t the kind of craving you can just ‘fulfill’, not when you’re single and are waking up to an empty house. Sure, you could call a friend. But remember that it’s 2020 and everyone is hiding away in their respective houses, hoping to stay away from Covid-19. All of my friends are married, have kids, or are just so damn afraid of sharing germs, that they only talk to others over text or phone call. There was no one to have breakfast with.

So I did what any self-aware single person does when they’re craving company that they can’t have: I took a deep breath, and remembered all of the things I have to look forward to. I got dressed, made my own breakfast and coffee, and went out to the front patio to eat and watch the birds.

When I looked out on the patio, my narrative quickly shifted. I stopped in shock and disappointment. There was a large, hideous beetle stuck on its back, huge spindly legs flailing around in futility, right next to the glider I was planning to eat my breakfast on. Having been drawn to the front porch light the night before, it must have gotten stuck on its back. I’m deeply afraid of large beetles, and cockroaches. They strike fear into my heart the way nothing else can. I’m ok with handling snakes, mice, lizards and even spiders. But, beetles…? No. Being single and Covid-quarantined, I had to face my fear and deal with it myself…my second act of fortitude this morning, and I hadn’t even had breakfast yet [yes, this is a Ralph Smart callback]. “Melissa, It’s time to push your self-centered loneliness aside and deal with this.”

When I used a broom to push the beetle back onto its feet, I felt viscerally disgusted, revolted even. But I also felt sad. It seemed that it was my responsibility to right the beetle so it could fly home, instead of letting it die on my porch after flailing around for hours upon hours. This was easily a 3-inch long beetle with equally long tentacles and a square body. I felt like I was in the presence of an alien. I paced around in indecision, vacillating between fear and empathy. I really wanted to eat my breakfast on the porch, without said bug wriggling next to my breakfast. I also couldn’t just let it die there. I let empathy win. I took the broom, staying as far away from the beetle as I could, pushed it off of my porch and onto its feet. For the following half-hour, I sat eating my breakfast while gliding on my glider, and between bouts of watching the birds…walked over to the beetle to put it back on its feet over and over…and over again. It hadn’t crawled an inch in 30 minutes! It kept flipping onto its back. I was forced to look closer. One of its legs looked broken. Actually, its leg was twitching uncontrollably…how strange.

Rewind two weeks. The same thing happened one morning, I looked out on the porch in the morning to see the mother of all beetles stuck on its back. This one was easily almost 5 inches long, bigger than a large hummingbird. I was horrified and literally could not imagine myself doing ANYTHING about it, short of calling in the army reserves or running around screaming in the streets. I told myself I’d figure it out later, and went on a walk. While I was out (thank you universe) I was lucky enough to run into the neighbor across the street, who likes to be helpful. He came over, righted the beetle for me, and we stood watching it crawl back to its home in the palm tree. I called the pest service the same day and got the whole house and yard sprayed. Better to kill everything in sight rather than have to come into contact with bugs like this in my own yard…Right?

This morning, as I watched the poor beetle twitching uncontrollably in the mulch by my porch, I remembered what had happened two weeks prior. I realized that its leg was not broken. Actually, its nervous system was starting to succumb to the effect of the pesticide that was sprayed at the foot of its tree, two weeks ago. I had doomed this bug, I had given it — and all of its family — a long, terrifying, slow death. Why? Because I’m scared of bugs. These particular beetles will not bring disease and filth into my house the way cockroaches do. Even though they are slowly eating the palm tree in my yard away, they’re not dangerous to me. They’re just living in my yard, contributing to nature in their own way. But because they scared me, I wanted them to die.

After 30 minutes of putting it back on its legs repeatedly, I became more comfortable with the beetle. I was no longer disgusted or afraid of it. In fact, when I thought of it dying, tears came to my eyes. The whole experience had woken a deep sense of connection within me. I even felt connected on a deeper level to this beetle that had horrified me less than an hour before. I knew I should have just squashed it to put it out of its misery, but I couldn’t. I gently picked up the poor thing with my dustpan — This made it only about 6 inches from my hand. I no longer cared — and gently placed it in the shade at the foot of its home tree. I told myself it would be out of the sun and close to its home as it died, and that gave me some peace.

What is mercy? Is it really just bravery in disguise?

Mercy is when you push aside your own discomfort to see another being’s pain, and you help them end that pain, somehow. Maybe you’re even helping them end the pain that you yourself began. Maybe you’re ending their pain by stopping what you’ve done to cause it. Mercy takes bravery. Bravery is the energy that pushes you past your discomfort. Some people are brave in war, some people are brave because they take risks. And others, they’re brave because they help other beings. We, the human race, are severely lacking in the third type of bravery: Mercy. To end fighting, out of bravery. To end killing, out of bravery. To stop harming things, out of bravery. Can we be brave as we sit and ponder our effect on the world, and on other humans? Can we start to admit that we don’t always do the right thing? Can we change?

The example of me and the beetle is small, but the meaning is far-reaching.

How often do we make choices that affect others? If I’m honest, we do it daily. Do we ever even realize our effect on them? Do we then put ourselves aside to correct that effect, to help those affected to feel better? You can look at your family relationships, your friendships, your romances. You can look at your effect on society, your effect on your immediate community. Even on the people you don’t know. They’re all impacted by your actions or inaction. As humanity slowly turns the stiff, rusted gears of evolution, it’s waking up to that reality.

Look at the book by Steven Pinker, ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature’. It talks about the slow decline of war and violence, across the timeline of human history. Even though the world feels more violent than ever right now, violence is actually at an all-time low. Yes, we’ve found new ways to harm one another that are not overtly violent, but the positive truth is that we are slowly but steadily moving away from violence. We’re waking up to our old ways and slowly trying to change. We’re feeling the remorse more. We’re feeling the discomfort of wrongful deeds, even subconsciously. Just look at our drug use and alcohol use, and the way that addictions have multiplied and diversified. We’re obsessed with quelling our emotional, and sometimes subconscious, dis-ease. Maybe we’re starting to become aware of our effect on everything outside of us. Maybe we’re starting to see that it’s not always positive.

The secret of the universe is that everything is connected

Whether or not there is a God to see what you do depends on whether or not you believe in God. It doesn’t even matter. Because what DOES pick up on your every action is the ripple that spreads out around you in all directions, at all times. What DOES feel the impact of your choices are people and animals…and yes, bugs too. It is the hardest part of being human: To make choices that serve you, while creating ripples that have a positive influence on the world. To nurture your internal world, and the world outside of you, at the same time.

When I looked out onto my porch this morning and saw that beetle scrambling and shaking in a futile effort to save its own life, I was afraid of it, yes. But the fear was a thin veil over my deeper feelings: Remorse. Regret. Sadness. Empathy. Grief. I asked myself why my fear was so important. Why does my fear overshadow my other emotions? Why is it ok to harm others because I’m afraid? How do I start waking up to my own actions, daily? How do I deepen my sense of responsibility to a point where I SEE how my actions impact other people and stop the action if I think it’s harmful? This is the way ordinary humans become wise men/women, or sages: they finally find the flow of action and reaction. They finally rise above their own fear or learn to use it to fuel their own good deeds. They find their bravery, their mercy.

To be afraid for yourself is one thing. But to be afraid for the planet, and for the populations on it, is quite another. You are a part of this world. We are all a part of this world. When you realize that acting from your own fear may actually harm another, or even harm the community or the world in which you live, it’s then that you enter a new level of evolution. Growing into new ways of connecting with the world, connecting with others, IS our evolution. All of the brain space we don’t use is not for killing. It’s for connecting. It’s for empathy. It’s for reaching out and perceiving on higher and deeper levels. It’s for understanding our place and the effect our place has on all else. It’s for the end of senseless violence, of senseless hate.

First, you must master your relationship with yourself.

Mastering effect starts with realizing that you have a life and a body that you’re caring for. You are both the Self and the Observer. Once you see yourself clearly and make more conscious choices, you’ll also see your effect on others more clearly. How did you get to this point in your life? No…it isn’t because of them. It’s because of you. What have you chosen above other options? What path did you put your feet on that brought you to this current moment? What would you like to improve upon? What different footsteps would you like to take?

It’s time for each of us to wake up.

After I placed the beetle in the shade of the tree, I walked away and felt better. I had done what I could for the bug, short of squashing it…or rewinding time. Afterward, I sat on my glider reading a book. A little bird alighted on the mulch next to the porch. It looked at me. It hopped across the mulch, and up onto the porch. It looked at me again. It was only a few feet from me. It found a little dead moth that was remaining from the porch light carnage. It ate the bug, looked at me, then went back into the mulch. The bird was gray and slender and had the most fragile-looking legs, like skinny twigs that could break at any second. But it seemed to have no fear of me. It found and ate two more dead moths. It looked at me one last time, picked up a third moth, and flew away. Undoubtedly, to feed another member of its family.

As I watched the bird hopping around and eating the bugs on my porch, I had an overwhelming sense that everything is connected. I had a sense that the bird looked at me not because I stood out but because I was there witnessing it. We were witnessing each other. It looked at me as if to say “Well, the world just keeps turning, doesn’t it? I’m off to feed my kids.”

I went into this morning feeling alone. I came out of it feeling more connected to myself and to the world than I had all week. While the morning was not what I expected, it managed to show me that I’m not alone. Maybe it was just what I needed. Yes, I still have to make my own breakfast. But I’m not alone.

Melissa Raise is a Health and Wellness Coach, Personal Trainer, Mom, and Philosopher. She is rooting for love and conscious evolution. For more of her blog posts and poetry, visit https://medium.com/@melissaraise