Remember, Once Upon A Time… in school, when eventually the teacher would require a team project.  One in which you were not allowed to pick your own group.  Everyone was assigned to their group by the teacher.

Kids like me, hated this.

Kids like me, knew better than to “team up” with just ANYBODY.

No, I was a hard worker, which meant that I wanted to work with the other hard workers… even if they weren’t my favorite people.  I could still admire the fact that they knew how to get down to business and get things done.  I may have no real social entanglements with my team partners, but we were assured a good grade.

Then the project comes along, wherein, all that blows out the window.

In this assignment, everyone has a slacker on their team… except for maybe one lucky team, who coincidentally usually ends up with less people in the group, and they all happen to be highly intelligent and driven.  I would always wonder why I didn’t get selected for that team.

The project would begin, usually with a slower start.  The people in my group would be use to my directive nature, and sit back, and relax while I take the reigns.  I would provoke participation, only to meet a brick wall; knowing in the end, nothing I could say would change their desire to participate.

After all this I would feel used, and drained.  I would feel as though people were taking advantage of my intelligence, drive, creativity, and follow through.

I hated it.  It filled me full of resentment toward both my peers and my teachers.   Especially the teachers.

I would think, “What the hell is wrong with these people to make them think that this assigned group shit is worthwhile on these terms?”

Things like this continue to happen as we get older and out of school.  The boss who takes credit for the work of an employee, the plagiarizer of work done by great artists and thinkers, left to copy and paste into whatever the slacker can not seem to produce for themselves.  I feel like this about artists reproducing the art of someone else, exactly.

Okay, great, you can copy what some one else did, and make it look very similar, perhaps with just a tiny twist of individuality … BUT HAVE YOU NO MIND OF YOUR OWN?  NO STYLE or PERSUASION?    Are you but hollow husks painted to look like a  full head of corn?

This feeling has run into my spiritual life, which I take far more seriously than any of the bullshit we deal with on a mundane basis.

I have been very consciously aware of my connection to the greater whole of humanity for most of my life.  It is that connection alone which leaves me feeling so disconnected at the same time.  It’s as though I was born half in this world, and half in another; and most of the people around me are not interacting with that “other world.”  They don’t understand where I am coming from, or what I am perceiving.

At times it feels very heavy, because it does not just influence me, it influences us all… I just seem to take it harder than most.

In my spiritual world, I have a job.  But it has nothing to do with money, or notoriety, or even happiness.   It is a job much of being a messenger.  Sometimes I have goodness to share, and other times I am the barer of bad news.  And many times, it feels like “DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER.”

I don’t make the rules, I don’t plan the scripting….I just show up, take what I am given and disseminate it to share.  People like me are scattered all over the globe with a tedious job of taking the reigns and leading peers to take a gander at the bigger picture.  To start participating on a higher level.  But we feel in the midst of slackers, who are taking the message too personally and retaliating with spiritual sabotage;  which is such an Earthbound response to knowing that the self is wrong and needs change.

I have to deal with two sets of requirements like taking an Advanced Placement Course.  I have to still mingle with those who don’t grasp the headier concepts.  I have to find patience in dealing with their avoidance.  It really fucking wears me out sometimes.  Imagine living life 24/7… no breaks.  This is the spiritual emotional job I have.  Sometimes people think I am callous, but really I just have little patience anymore for purposeful ignorance.

Now maybe the teachers who are setting us up in these groups… whether physical or spiritual, know something I have not yet grasped.  I mean they must know who strives , and who the slackers are.  They must observe how people catalyze one another, whether for better or worse.  And perhaps it is their experiment toward some sort of social change…. maybe they just think it’s a sick/funny joke.  Either way, we are told, that we will never be given more than we can handle.  I am waiting to see how THAT plays out.

Lately I have felt a tipping point.  I don’t want to help the slackers any more.  There is no excuse for their slacking.  I want them to see that their slacking effects us all, and it puts extra and undue stress on those of us who are already trying to keep balance.  I want to trust that the teachers really know what they are doing, and that they are doing what is best for everyone… but at times those waters are murky.    Lately those waters have been murky.  I want to cash in my chips and to say to hell with it.

But I can’t.  I am not allowed to.  I have to “follow through.”  It’s getting harder, not easier.

If we could all just agree that we are in this together, we all have a spiritual job to do, and show up for… my life would seem less like a losing battle.  I bet you yours would too.