Purpose

What is the point of life?  I am working with this very intriguing 23 year old kid right now.  He is one of the more depressed people that I know, but since he doesn't have insurance he doesn't have any access to looking for someone who can give him some medication.  Besides he wouldn't take it.  He self-medicates with marijuana.  Too bad he doesn't live in Washington state... But , he comes to therapy religiously every week.  And he actually uses it.  But he struggles with esoteric ideas regarding the meaning of life. We spend a lot of time exploring what it could be. He's made me think of about the point of my own life.
I am a firm believer in paying attention to the universe and what it's telling me.  I am also really good at ignoring any signals.  Now, you can't tell me that this was just a coincidence.  I had two separate accidents within a month of each other on the scene stretch of road going to work at my old job.  Actually one was going and one was coming back.  The first one was when a 17-year-old girl was trying to sneak through a gap in the cars and didn't watch the traffic and pulled out directly in front of me.  I freaked out and pulled my car really hard to the right in order to avoid a head-on collision.  I ended up  almost hitting an apartment building!  Flashbacks of hitting my house!  I managed to stop in time and just knocked down a for rent sign.  When the cop came and saw the way I walked, he kept saying "Are your sure you're okay?".  I had to explain that I always walk this way.
The second time I was coming home from work on the scene stretch of road.  This time a 17-year-old boy pulled out of his driveway and directly into my path.  Again I pulled really hard away from him as much as possible, but he managed to hit  my car right on the chassis between two doors.  That accident was a little more freaky!  After the first accident I had driven up onto the lawn of the apartment building so I was out of the way of the oncoming traffic.  In the second one, the kid, who was driving a huge SUV, pushed my little Honda Fit right into the middle of the road.  Plus I got turned around so I was facing oncoming traffic.  I think that I have a guardian angel because a car came to block the path of the oncoming traffic.  Yeah yeah, it was probably just somebody who was coming anyway and saw the accident.  But it felt like a guardian angel!  In the first accident, the car was messed up, but it wasn't as visible as with the Fit.  When the SUV knocked into the Fit, it blew out all of  the safety class on the passenger side.  I know why they call it safety glass because I found little pieces of glass in my bra that night!  It was everywhere.  It looked like someone had thrown a huge bucket of ice all over the seat of my car.  But it wasn't hurt, the airbags didn't go off, and except for a CD in the CD player, I rescued everything from out of the car.  And I didn't have a passenger because they probably would have been injured. 
Now I drive a Nissan Cube.  It may be ugly, but it gets great safety ratings!
Maybe this was just a coincidence, 17-year-olds are bad drivers, or it a dangerous stretch of road.  But it feels to me like the universe was trying to tell me that I needed to get out of that job.  Since I didn't listen, the universe arranged for me to get laid off!
I knew that I was not happy in that job.  I liked the kids, and I liked my staff , of course, but it was getting harder and harder for me to work those hours.  I could have given up my part-time private practice, but I really didn't want to.  And thank goodness I didn't since community mental health all over was pretty much decimated financially.  The cynical part of me thinks I was laid off because I was on the insurance and made the premiums go up, but there is someone else who has Parkinson's disease who works there and he hasn't been laid off, so that's probably not it.
Recently I received another message from the universe.  I had a business partner who basically  screwed me over.  The funny thing is, she pursued me to join my private practice.  I told her fine but she would have to be in charge of all the business aspects because I wasn't in a good at that.  She agreed and then pretty much took over everything.  I am a pretty laid back person and she's a pretty pushy person.
She chose which bank we would use, what furniture we would buy, how we would set up my playroom... you name it.  I had to put my foot down on two things.  One was the use of an accountant.  She wanted to use her accountant who was telling her that there was no way she would get any better deal with anyone else.  He was kind of a creep, too.  He used to say sexist things to her and yell at her and tell her not to question him.  I finally told her we had to go meet with the accountant that my husband and I have used who is a great guy.  Her accountant was charging us $200 a quarter.  The accountant that I recommended, charged us about $80 a quarter.
Another thing I put my foot down about was location choice.  At the time that she joined me, we were in an office building that was horribly neglected.  I had moved their from a building that has recently been sold.  I had one little office in the basement of the building and was paying a tiny little amount for it.  The new company wanted to have me sign right a 13 year lease or something ridiculous like that.  So I had moved into an individual office in a suite with another therapist. That guy turned out to be kind of a jerk, and the building was decrepit and really poorly regulated temperature-wise.  I still have a picture on my phone that I took of a thermometer I have that reads 110°!  Remember, I am not supposed to get too hot.  My partner had wanted to rent space on a different floor of that building and get a loan to do a build-out.  We actually went so far as to meet with the contractor.  But she wanted to do it without getting a permit! The owner of the building that was okay with that!  I refused to do that.  Plus her plans, would have given her about 85% of suite for what she does and I would not have my own office.  I've had my own office since I graduated from grad school years ago!  Since the  space  hadn't been built yet I figured I would have those battles later.  As it was, we didn't get the loan from her bank.  Message from the universe. Duh!
So we decided to look for a new office.  This is where I did put my foot down.  I have always had a private practice in the suburb where I live.  She wanted me to think about moving to the suburb where she lives.
I had given in on a lot of things to her, but this was not  negotiable.
After a while, it became quite evident that I was working way more than I was being compensated for.  I asked if we could please have an accountant review QuickBooks and help her with it.  She was very controlling about the money and QuickBooks.  She finally agreed with the idea that he would just train us on the books.  When he came, he needed to be able to access our account in order to reconcile the numbers.  She became very defense is a cagey about providing that information.  Later. the accountant told me that they were trained to recognize when someone was hiding something and that being so defensive meant that she was probably hiding something.
To this day I think that what she was hiding was that she was completely incompetent in terms of managing the books.  She is very smart and prides herself on being good at a lot of things.  But I also think, that I was paying the lion's share of the expenses.  She always maintained that we were making about we were bringing in about the same amount of money, but the accountant's assessment of what he could see, was that I was making much more.
This was a huge lesson for me.  I was way too trusting and didn't look out for my own interests.  I should have insisted from the very start that we both have equal access to the finances and the books.  She would give me a statement once a month, and I was totally trusting that she was telling me accurate and complete information.  Now, I don't think she meant to rip me off.  I think she legitimately wanted to build a private practice together.  But her goals were to hire a bunch of other therapists and not have to do the work ourselves.  I just wanted to do good work. 
The upshot of the situation is that she decided that we shouldn't be in practice together because she was uncomfortable managing my money.  Once again, I took the path of least resistance.  She had been the one to pursue becoming incorporated, and she had been the one to work on getting contracts with several of the insurance companies.  This isn't really true, because I already had contracts with some of them, but she was the one who talked to them and got us on to panels as a group practice.  I was so hurt and angry that I just wanted to be done with her so I let her keep the corporation and the name.  The name we were using was when I thought of years and years ag.  I remember telling my supervisor at a job I had about 20 years ago that I wanted to have a place called the Playful Healing Center.  But now she owns the name and a website with that name.  I had a painting done by a friend a long time ago as well to be my logo.  I had a business card design was using and she changed it anyway.  But it has the logo on it.  I understand that she has cards to use up. And I understand she can't get to changing the paperwork  with the logo is on it.  We are currently sharing the office space and I am being very tolerant.  But there will come a time where I will tell her she has to stop using the logo, and though I am not a litigious person, it may end up coming to that.
I know that this has very little to do with MS, but I really needed to talk about it.  This whole debacle feels like one of the reasons I am struggling with midlife crisis and questioning why I am doing what I'm doing.
I think she is completely clueless how much she hurt me and how angry I am.  Someday, I am going to reclaim the name of my practice and she will have to find something new to call her self.
But for now, I am continuing the best that I can.
So what is the point of life?  MS definitely plays a role in teaching me something as did the challenges of my business partner.
Here is my point in my: challenges are always going to come.  You can choose to allow them to keep you from connecting to others or you can choose to continue to believe that people are basically good.  You can become angry and bitter and reject someone out right if they hurt you.  Or you can live in grace accepting people and situations as they are.  I choose to believe that we are all part of the same and that when someone treats you badly their pain is worse than your pain because they are living in unawareness and darkness because they choose to not recognize how special and important connections are.
I started by talking about the 23-year-old depressed kid I am and working with.  I shared with him that my joy is being able to be connected to him through sharing of our experiences. 
The universe is giving me the messages to slow down, and to be more attuned my world and recognize what is important.  Love Each Other Love Each Other Love Each Other.