Revenge???

So, I'm sitting here, fuming, frustrated, fed-up and freezing, wondering what there is I can do to deal with this craziness about having the thermostat locked away inside a plastic box, so I can't warm the house beyond what my housemates have decided is OK...

And really, there is not much that I can, in honour, do...

I can smash the lock box and turn up the thermostat - am thinking about it, but then we get into the possibility that they'll match violence with violence, either against me or our stuff, and/or that they'll call the police...

I can steal or damage their property, hoping it will give me leverage to get them to unlock the thermostat so I can be warm... same risks...

I can rant and rave and throw things... makes me look crazy

I can just give in...

It was the same when my housemates moved my possessions down into the garage and put all their art work on the walls, leaving no space for mine...

I could have hauled all my stuff back up the stairs...

I could have taken their art work down...

I could have put mine up...

I could have left theirs up, and filled every last square inch of wall space with mine, regardless of the aesthetics of that...

Gandhi said: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"...

And what's that truism about two wrongs not making a right?

None of these options could be implemented without me seeming to be vindictive, without adding to the energetics of abuse, disrespect, without escalating this battle for power and control...

And yet, there is no denying I have a right to be warm and comfortable in the space I pay for us to live in, using utilities I have already paid for, just as Connor and I have the right to make our surroundings feel like our home too...

And in all of this, Connor is watching to see how to handle conflict in a healthy manner...

I've been playing a game called Balance on Bejewelled, where you have to collect equal numbers of red and blue gems, all the time keeping two tubes balanced so one doesn't reach the bottom before the other.

I've come to understand, in the last few weeks, that this is what life is about - keeping the balance...

In this world of duality and paradox, there are two driving forces - love and fear, expansion and contraction... and it's not a case of either/or, it's a case of and/also...

They don't necessarily have a qualitative value attached to them (we humans might assign them values, but Life itself does not).   They are not good and evil, positive and negative, black and white... they just are... and harmony exists when they are in balance...

So for me, the object of living well is to maintain balance...

And, if my housemates' action is symbolised by a red gem, for example... to stay in balance, harmony, I have to put forward a blue gem... putting forward another red gem (an act of revenge, of power and control, of abuse) will create imbalance and disharmony... 

My question to myself is - what will a blue gem action or state of mind/attitude look like?

 

How can I solve this problem, stay in integrity and not become a victim?   I can be compassionate, I can be understanding, I can be forgiving.... but... I'm still bloody cold sitting at 55F inside my own home in the middle of a Seattle winter!