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The Road to Inner Peace is Paved With Idiots
After two years of spirituality school, I still struggle to forgive myself and others

The Universe = Love
The essential nature of the Universe is Love and, therefore, my essential nature is Love. When I am in my Loving, I recognize the Loving Essence in others. Namaste.
I hate everyone in this room.
I sit in the auditorium at my kids’ school for my youngest daughter’s drama showcase and, everywhere I look, I see people on my shit list. There are so many of them that my oldest daughter suggests I get a file cabinet to keep it all straight. She even gives it a name: Robin’s Fight Files, four-fifths of which is devoted to the defense of my son, the one with ADHD.
So I sit in the school auditorium among the file cabinet people I hate, hating myself because:
1. I can’t stand parents who over-share with their children and the fact that my eighth-grade daughter knows who the adults are on my shit list and why means I am now one of those parents.
2. I want to be in my Loving¹ with all people and living things on the planet and being in the elementary school auditorium kills the Loving vibe for me.
And, finally:
3. I’m a bitter and judgmental person. I spent two years in spirituality school and learned to be the arbiter of my own value. And I still hate everyone. I am a remedial.
I look at the drama teacher who’s hosting the stupid showcase and have to admit she has some talent. I remember the uncanny rendition of my son she acted out in the front office at 1 o’clock in the afternoon the week before — in front of my oldest daughter, who’d come with me to pick up her little sister, and any other parents who happened to be in the office at the time.
The drama teacher had spotted me behind the counter at the blue sign-out sheet and lunged from her spot near the teachers’ cubbies.
“Robin,” she said, “I have to talk to you about your son and his ADHD! He stomps around the classroom in the afternoon looking angry and moody and… ”
After two years at spirituality school, I am…