Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore

I had a conversation recently with a friend about what I "am"....I felt offended to know that I was not at all a Tigger.....although I have often wondered if I am a Eeyore parading as a Tigger but secretly an Eeyore.....I have always aspired to bounce back like a Tigger and not to wallow as an Eeyore does...however, I am starting in the middle...It was sheer chance that as a I wandered in Woolworth's after moving to Winston-Salem to start a pediatric residency, that I came upon a toy Tigger and Pooh that could hang on my stethescope. They have stuck. I alternate my "fomite magnets" and wash them periodically...they have been drooled upon and peed on and...well, you understand all the body functions......I am known as the "doctor with the Pooh/Tigger"...So Pooh and Tigger are a part of my everyday life...I give them rarely a thought....but I suppose I should. Benjamin Hoff brought back Pooh and Tigger and Christopher Robin to me in college....."The Tao of Pooh" and "The Te of Piglet" were some of my favorite reading. I suppose that is where my quandry started....where I began this internal examination of my core "Pooh-ness" or "Tigger-ness" or "Eeyore-ness" as the case may be....I have often worried about my own personal "Eeyore effect"...the something within that WANTS to be unhappy...the melancholy that spreads its negative energy out like a disease. The "Eeyore effect" makes you believe you are powerless to overcome difficulties. It locks you in fear of positive expression and action because of the disappointment and hurt that could follow. It keeps one obsessed with what is WRONG with our world that we do not even see the GOOD things in our lives. The Eeyores look at the difficulties and do not want to experience the growth and achievement that accompanies overcoming the problems. Too afraid of the pain that comes with the growth and progress. "What matters about problems is what one DOES with them..." Although I must admitt it is hard to get up when sinking in the quicksand of dispair.Now on the OTHER hand we have my bouncey impulse driven "Tigger-ness"....I have been accused of a lack of focus before....I know I am always in the perpetual motion that Tigger is known for...mine I often feel though is to avoid stopping and allowing my "Eeyore effect" to take over. I do know that I have that natural exhuberance for experiencing everything to the fullest...from frantically seeking the fun with enthusiasm....perhaps too much enthusiasm thus bringing the exhaustion that keeps the Eeyore in me at bay....Mr. Hoff reflected that the love of ceaseless action and sensation is actually a form of spiritual laziness. He attests that Tiggers are not in control of their lives and behavior and their endless search for instant gratification, happiness, love and success is doomed to frustration, disapointment, and failure. Instead, it is posed that Tiggers should let things come to them, as wisdom and happiness are not things that can be chased after and grabbed on a whim. We need to "stop trying too hard and just let things as they need to." ( Yes, I know, I need to listen to myself sometimes...that is the purpose of my prose....)So now I can go back to my conversation with a friend....she said "you are so not a Tigger...". Although I was hurt, I felt I had to push on with the conversation...."So you think I am an Eeyore?" I asked. " No," she answered, " You are not a Tigger. But you are not an Eeyore." She went on to explain that I am generally happy. I am Friends with the Eeyores and friends with the Tiggers and I can be sad and afriad and excited, but not to the extreme (?!??), so I then am a Pooh. Mr Hoff speaks of the Taoist "Way" and uses Pooh and friends to examine this philosophy.I am contemplating my own Way, my own journey; for we are each searching for our own Way, and our journeys can cross, and diverge, and sometimes travel together. I often struggle to listen to the voices of simplicity and wisdom that come from within, in order to to find my Way....I have to agree that within all of us there is an Eeyore and a Tigger, an Owl and a Piglet too. I fear emptiness as it reminds of loneliness, but in my attempt to fill the spaces of my journey with motion and action and STUFF, the loneliness creeps in anyway. and I am left with nothing. I think I will chose the Way of Pooh. I hear his voice as a voice of a child, filled with light and happiness and glittter. The voice is not preoccupied with the worries and the fear of life; it is a voice from far away, and deep within....showing me the Way.