What a Broken Umbrella Taught Me
Yesterday I was walking to the gym when my umbrella got broken. Last time at the gym somebody mistakenly took mine (it was black and common — an honest mistake) and I took one of those left at the gym.
But it got broken and at the end of the workout I asked the owner if I can take another one of those left hoping it’ll at least cover the walk until home. He nodded, waved “go ahead” and got back to watching his movie.
But when I was taking it I felt like a bum picking somebody’s clothes and things.
Walking home I was still carrying that feeling, thinking that the owner must have looked at me mockingly and that even people on the streets could somehow know that I was carrying a somebody else’s umbrella.
It was not pleasant, feeling like you are second class in the world of first class people.
Until it hit me:
It was all only in my head.
And I realised that it was a perfect example of how our thinking shapes our lives.
If I striped away layers of my thinking what was left would be me taking the umbrella and the owner waiving “go ahead”.
That would be it. Those were the facts, the carcass of what’s happened.
And then the owner’s look, passersbys’ looks, my feelings — it all was just in my head as a result of my thinking. It felt real, it was real to me and causing me to feel a certain way but it was just a thought.
And once you know that whatever you feel is just a though the magic trick is no longer a trick but just a series of moves.
Thinking shapes our lives
A physicist David Bohm once said: “A thought creates the world and then says: “I didn’t do it””. And that is so true.
If not for my thinking I would have a completely different experience. And once I remembered it I could just let it go.
And after that new thought my feelings changed. I wasn’t conscious anymore and I could just go on with my day walking back home.
And it got me wondering –
How many problems we create with our thinking where there are no problems? How much we overthink — that guy’s look, this woman’s face, what did he/she mean whey they look at me like that?
Some about the future –
What will happen with me?
What should I do to prepare for it (as if it can be predicted)?
What problems and challenges will come to me?
What should I worry about now?
We fill the carcass of our life story with our excessive thinking turning what is relatively simple into a struggle, trying to predict and forecast, control and manage.
But life wasn’t meant to be lived this way. We can plan for what needs to be planned and get back to “now” — the only place that is real, the only time that exists.
The Chinese have a concept of Wu Wei or “not doing”. It means not trying to control your life and going with the flow whenever possible.
Life was not meant to be full of problems and often if we just let it unfold many of them will take care of itself.
Much like a knot when you stop trying to untie it with force and gently pull one side instead.
And, who knows, maybe our lives were also meant to be lived this way: gentle, not forcing it, and only doing things when and with as much force as necessary.
