Am I This or That?

If you are a perfectionist, life will surround you with imperfect people and then you will loathe them.
If you are punctual, life will crowd you with the unpunctual lot, and you'll scoff at them.
If you are a control freak, life will give you kids that can't be controlled and you'll wonder who is controlling who.
If you are an optimist, you'll have pessimistic colleagues and you'll berate them.
If you are peaceful, you will have quarrelsome neighbours, and then you'll judge them.
If you are a good person, you will be cheated by bad people, and you'll hate them.
If you believe in love, you will be betrayed, and then you'll fear even the idea of love.

Life will keep on throwing these contradictions at you until one fine day there is a shift.
That shift will make you realize that choosing one invites the other, because one can't exist without the other.
When you say 'I am this', life brings you 'that' because in the absence of 'that', 'this' is not. (Like in the absence of night, there is no day)

And with this shift comes the possibility of acceptance of both 'this' and 'that'.
Then life becomes beautiful because the perfectionist stops loathing imperfection, the punctual doesn't scoff at the unpunctual, a control freak doesn't feel the need to control anyone, a peaceful person doesn't judge the quarrelsome and the good doesn't hate the bad.
And this leads to the next beautiful realization: to call yourself 'this' or 'that' is incomplete because they are all labels, properties, judgments.

Then your identification stops at 'I am'. You cease to be 'I am this' or 'I am that'.
Once you get there, stay there.
Once you can stay there, take me there.
;-)