You are drawn to people who give you an opportunity to play out a role that has value for you. It may be comfortable or uncomfortable, but it’s a role you value. You avoid people when you find yourself falling into a role you don’t want to play anymore. And you “outgrow” a relationship when you no longer want to play the role or roles you play in that relationship. In ego, there is no way to avoid the past.

William invites the uneasy in for lunch.

"I like looking for the uneasy. I invite it in."

"In your food?"

"No. When something makes me quaver; when something makes me uncomfortable I try not to spend time looking for ways to distract myself from it. I am almost initially exicited about the answer that could be hidden in it."

"Even though it is making you uncomfortable?"

"Yes."

"OK."

"It's like a clue."

"A clue?"

"Yes a clue. Can't you see that?"

"What?"

"What makes you uncomfortable is a clue that maybe you need to look at it closer."

"At solving it."

"Yes."

"OK."

"But you run out of it, don't you?"

"I work the problem."

"You resolve it right?"

"I get it resolved."

"You quickly move it out of your way. You through money at it, you make calls. You get through it with your ears and eyes closed."

"I do."

"I look at it. I stop and know that it is much more important than running through it."

"You're special arn't you?"

"I'm not."

"You are and it's not just your hat."

"The things that rise up and make me directly uncomfortable just gets me a little excited, you know?"

"Like cheveux noirs et courts."

"I feel special."

"I knew it."

"I feel like this is just for me. I look at how my heart is beating. This is just for me. How I handle it, how I calmly digest it, it turns into nothing terrible but something much more enjoyable."

"Huh?"

"What's uncomfortable, becomes much more rewarding if I just invite it in."

"Good afternoon."

Slowie doesn't want victimization by Hasbro.

"I struggle when all of my toys are taken away."

"What do you mean?"

"You always ask that."

"Yeah."

"I'm just like you who loves to marinate--bask, rather in victimization. I want to use it at a drop of a hat to further conceptualize my need for attention during someone else s need for clarity in a moment."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Of course I could be doing the same thing--at said moment, then we could easily cancel each other out."

"Well yeah, that is the case in all of my relationships, but what happens when you are aware of this while it is going on?"

"You bury it like a good Lutheran."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I don't have anything else to do."

"Huh?"

"Self mutilation is my only past time."

"Harakiri. Yes. It is what brings all the boys to the yard. I play the victimization card because I like reminding people that I'm valuable. If they buy into my performance it can add fucked up years to an already fucked up relationship. Of course this is if I can't accuse someone of something either passively or with super strength. But I do use victimization as a last resort."

"I'm thinking you should stop talking."

"Yeah. Maybe. So I can see that you hate me...you hate me right? You're right I'm all fucked up. I don't know what's going on with me, I'm sorry."

"I don't hate you. I mean ...oh whatever."

"What?"

"You will struggle like me when you take away all of your little toys."

"We really don't know who people are, what things and situations are for, why we are here or how to correct things. Truly a great gift is the humility to say and mean, 'I wish to be comfortable with not knowing.' The second we surrender our limited experience of knowing, we are instantly relieved of our burden."

William doesn't like his personal space.

"I don't know what space is for."

"What?"

"Space."

"You mean final frontier space?"

"No. I mean when I needed it in my life."

"Time to yourself?"

"I tried to protect it vehemently. I created relationships around it."

"What do you mean?"

"By making sure the relationships I had were in conjunction with the 'need for space' mentality."

"What?"

"People who needed space as well."

"I'm spacing out."

"What?"

"That shit is only natural that people will need down time."

"Sure, but this shit can not be architected. What I discovered is that, this is already built into relationships where you seemingly have no space."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying it."

"I don't think so."

"Space or down time is mythological. The whole relationship is your life; the space or down time I found wasn't as valuable as I thought. I wasn't really protecting anything that was productive. In most cases I sat around holding an empty block of time just for the principle of it."

"You don't just go to the museum by yourself huh?"

"Like you go to the museum."

"Well."

"You're always here."

"You're right. I'm just sayin'."

"Alone time allows me to get a better perspective on what is happening in my life, even if it's walking through the museum or taking a personal trip. But what I'm saying is it should not be cordoned off. It should not be considered a personal life within a personal life. There are no personal lives. You have one life, and you open yourself to allow the light of this life and all of its experiences to shine everywhere. Your down time is there to boost further commitment to the fact that all your life is a cabaret. All of it is open to interpretation."

"I like eating here alone."

"I know you do, and it has served us well."

One of the fastest ways to surrender is to accept reality as it presents itself--not to deny or resist it, because if we do, we are in conflict with ourselves and the Unified Will. We waste so much energy on defending, denying, and resisting What Is. Instead we could soften our resistance and invite the situation to teach us and lead us to what we really want. Any challenge we perceive is purely a vehicle to learn more about who we are and about our Purpose.