Escalator, grant me the Serenity…
A lesson on control.
Escalator
I’m about to descend the escalator, as boring as that may sound, to get from point A to point B. Once again, this brief journey has much to teach me. I’m hoping the escalator works this time, as it’s recently been under maintenance. Why do I even care about this, though? If it’s broken, I can simply walk down the escalator myself. But I entertain this thought. Is it me being lazy? I entertain this thought a little more. Does it bother me that no one cares to fix the escalator? I step onto the escalator only to find that it is working fine. As I descend the escalator, all of my surroundings become out of reach. In a way, I am confined to the escalator by its handrails. It seems as if I’ve surrendered myself to the escalator, trusting it will get me from point A to point B. Whatever happens outside the limits and boundaries of the escalator is out of reach, out of my control. I contemplate. What if I just rush down the escalator, so that I can get out of this confined space. By doing so, I’ll be able to have more control over things, once again. I could do that, but surely I’ll find myself in a similar situation sooner than later: once I get into my car and drive back home, I’ll be confined to its boundaries. This sounds all too familiar… Life! Much like the escalator, our mind and body act on us as restricting forces. We wake up, eat, work, exercise, sleep, and go about our lives constrained by our mind and body. Again, much like the escalator, everything outside our mind and body is out of our reach, out of our control. What exactly is out of our control? The weather, natural occurrences, death, insults, reputation, and judgment are some examples that come to mind. No matter how hard we try to control these, their origins are external and out of our control. No matter how fast we try to rush down the escalator to gain control over things, sometimes the nature of things prevents us from having such control. So Escalator, please grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Originally written on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 (edits: Jan. 23rd, 2022)
