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Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read

Here’s an example from life, a very concrete one, how simple framing can make all the difference. And how giving can be a gift.

[First, let me say I too think that if you’re looking into your neighbor’s bowl, it should be to make sure he has enough, not to satisfy yourself that he doesn’t have more than you do.]

On that sacred-to-cannabis-users holiday of April 20th, in the recently weed-liberated state of Washington, on a beautiful sunny day, I biked over to the legal-weed store and [after pinching myself to eliminate a creeping worry this might all be a dream] stocked up on an obscenely inexpensive array of celebratory holiday deals. Exotic, tasty treats in a once-a-year loss-leader flurry of bargains that ended up costing out at about $4 a gram. For top-notch produce. Kif, oils, vapors, flower, concentrates. Fifty-five bucks worth. Grinning so hard I could have pulled something, I put everything in the little bag velcroed onto my bike’s tailpiece, and smug joy trailed along behind me like speed lines in a cartoon as I pedaled the ten blocks home.

Where I discovered that the bag, after a year of staying in place as though nailed there, had chosen today to release its grip somewhere along the route.

The bag was gone, and my delightful, frugal, unique 4/20 deals with it.

I lurched into frantic search frenzy, burned back and forth between store and home three complete round trips at Tour de France speeds, ending up sweaty, hoarse, gasping, sore-throated, and still weedless. It was gone. I strongly considered punching myself stupid. (Well, stupider.)

Moping and whipping myself mercilessly, mentally, as a barely-functioning cretin that couldn’t be trusted to hang onto his shoes, I managed to round up enough money to go back and mostly duplicate the deals, although it would mean some scrimping elsewhere. But at least I didn’t completely miss out on my 4/20.

But I couldn’t let it go. I was furious.

I could not get it out of my gut. I hate making bonehead errors. Which can be a good thing, overall. But this one was gnawing at me like stomach acid. VELCRO for fuck sake. (Didn’t help that my know-it-all older landlord/housemate kept chiming in with “Well whaddya expect from Velcro,” and I had to keep biting back “AFTER A GODDAM YEAR WITH NO PROBLEM? NOT THIS!”. He has a natural talent for chafing a rash. And I for being rash. ;)

This tendency to try to wring every last possible lesson out of a bad experience before I’ll let it go has led me to some of my greatest personal gains… but has also undeniably strained some relationships at times, too. And stolen focus from potentially better frames. The line between “useful tenacity” and “futile doggedness” is not painted in neon.

So, about four days into kicking myself in the ass (“God damn it, what the fuck were you thinking with Velcro? Is there anything else that ill-secured in my gear? What can I learn from this?”), I’d fixed the secure-carry situation, worried the lessons I could out of the mistake — but it still stuck in my craw. The “teachable moment” had been milked, but the frustration still had heat behind it.

Then I remembered something. And it all turned inside-out in just moments.

The previous summer, working at a thrift store, I’d gone out to my car for lunch one clear, sunny day, and just sitting there, next to my car, on the curb, nearly pristine, barely touched, was a cold-cream sized jar of Candy Kush. A beautiful, fragrant eighth-ounce of manicured cannabis from a premium grower. Just left there like a mint on a pillow.

Had some Canadian cannabis tourist left it because he’d over-bought what he could smoke in a day, was headed home and, border dogs? Or had some absent-minded local curb-smoker just driven off in testimony to the quality of the goods?

Whatever disguise the angels had assumed, finding an eighth of an ounce of free weed on a sunny day at the top of my lunch hour still ranks as one of those memories you’d draw on if you had to endure a leg being sawn off without anesthesia: a “happy place” I’ll never forget, prosaic and low-stakes as it was.

And that memory inspired an epiphany: multiply my joy on that day by a hundred for whoever, on the four-goddam-twenty holiday itself, opened a nondescript little black nylon point-and-shoot case they found on the road, and found Bob Marley’s own spice rack in his hands.

The year the gods of 4/20 dropped a gift basket on your ass straight out of a clear blue sky. On a beautiful spring day.

How would you not tell that story every. got. dam. four-twenty for the rest of your LIFE with an ear-to-ear grin?

And I started grinning.

And now every time I think of that whole episode, I get an even bigger ear-to-ear shit-eating grin than I got when it was *my* turn to hit the jackpot, so to speak.

From a frustration to a delight with no transition in between. (And it further tickles me that that happy gob-struck sonofabitch will never know who his accidental benefactor was, & will always wonder.)

Picturing the joy of that unexpected windfall gives me a smile every time I think about it. Every time.

I probably got thirty bucks worth of free weed myself, the previous summer, and only paid twenty more than that to give the next rider on the Pay It Forward Express five or ten times that kick. I’m the shadowy Zeus-traveling-incognito figure in a 4/20 LEGEND, for the tiniest of investments.

I would do it again in a heartbeat. ;)

As I biked away from the store initially, about to lose my bag, there was a gaggle of about eight gothy-grungy-anarchist lookin’ kids milling away from hangin’ out after school walking up the street behind me: looked like a casting call for an update of The Breakfast Club. I kinda hope it was them that snagged the bag.

Because that would become an immortal part of that misfit group’s lore. Every reunion or 4/20 or “hey remember that summer when,” you can be damn sure that story will get pulled out. (And friends not present for the find will be sure they’re exaggerating. “You guys are such liars.” “No, I swear! On 4/20!” “Oh, bullshit.” “Tell ’em, Tim!” “Yeaaah, right.”)

I’ll always have a chunk of that joy. It will always make me smile to think about it. And what an incredibly bargain-basement cost!

And that, my marathon-reading friends, is what is known as a framing effect.

Simply by adopting a different framework through which to view the event, my entire emotional affect changed from a damaging, stressful, negative, unhappy one to a delighted, contented, satisfied-altruist one. Gnawing discontent to glowing satisfaction.

This represents a very real change to health. To relationships. To opportunities taken or not. It can make a drastic difference in your life, that simple choice (not really even an effort) to re-frame your view.

It was god damn magical. Although fully aware of the effect, I’m still a little stunned by its effectiveness here with no more than a moment’s ‘effort.’

I leave it to you to find your own way to take advantage of the effect.

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An enigma wrapped in a megaphone