A TEACHABLE MOMENT

It sometimes seems that the world is going crazy; that nothing makes sense anymore. It is easy to take that position when out of control events and people surround us.

But what if everything happens for a reason? What if every struggle we experience is really there not for us to feel bad, but for us to learn something that we are meant to learn?  When you step back from events swirling around you, it becomes a little clearer; it becomes logical, almost certain, that the things we experience are there for a reason, if we could only find the reason.

There is no question in my mind that everyone is living in their own self-created world/universe. This was brought home to me a few days ago (Sunday) when I ran into some friends while running out for breakfast on a sweltering August day in NYC. I was already sweating and exhausted from a six block walk (it was about 92 degrees and humid at 1130am), but my friends, who looked like they had been through a blender, remarked on how nice a day it was, and that they were out with their dog walking for much of the morning.

I confess: I looked at them like they were crazy. I’m all for making the most of weather fluctuations, and I rarely complain about the weather. But their insistence (almost in a cult-like way) that this day was so nice made me wonder. Is it possible they really feel that way?  Is their version of reality any less valid than my own on that day, when all I could think of was returning to my air-conditioned apartment?

I really don’t know the answer. But in the short conversation that we had, they also informed me that they were going on an eight day bike trip to France in a week; staying in the Normandy region. Again, I thought to myself, are they crazy? France is in a state of emergency, but my friends didn’t seem to pay it any concern.

A teachable moment,  for sure. But what is the lesson here?