Life Lesson #34,9287

“Annoying idiots people can be our greatest teachers.”
~Me

It was her third “request” in as many minutes.

“Carol” A fictitious name I use to refer to women who like to complain and inevitably ask to speak to the manager,* had already asked if the” lights had to be so dim?” (she couldn’t see anything and was afraid she would fall) and whether she could use her own eye pillow (since the ones provided would most certainly give her “a nasty case of pink-eye”).

This was a Sunday morning meditation class, not a twenty-hour flight to Wuhan. The other twelve people in the room were settled in, silently laying on mats, waiting for the class to begin. Since Carol was to my immediate right, brushing past me repeatedly in her attempt to get everything just so, I had a front-row seat to her…discomfort.

Believe me, I tried not to judge. I practiced my deep breathing, hoping she would settle down—or spontaneously combust. 

I know. I’m a horrible person.

“Can you do something about that fan?” she huffed, arranging her mat, head roll, backrest, eye pillow, toeless socks, hand sanitizer, and eco-friendly water thingy in the most meticulous way imaginable. 

Covertly, under my germ-ridden, cockroach scented (kidding) communal eye pillow, I rolled my eyes so dramatically they accelerated the rotation of the planet (not kidding). 

“That’s the heater,” our saint of a teacher replied. “I can’t adjust the AC or the heat,” she said, “they’re pre-set.” She pointed toward the thermostat on the back wall, the one covered by a bulletproof plastic box with a nine-digit keypad lock and retinal scanner. 

“Fine,” Carol fibbed because clearly, she wasn’t. 

I worried about Carol in the modern world. 

Trying to control it would only drive her (and the poor unsuspecting people around her) mad. I wanted to reassure her, let her know she was always okay. I wished I could help her navigate her emotional well being by teaching her how to block out all of the leaf blowers, sirens, crying babies, dim lights, noisy fans and Carols who are sent by the devil to distract us. 

That’s when it hit me like five hundred tons of bricks thrown at my forehead. I needed to practice what I preached!

So I took three deep breaths, dropped into the container of me—and tuned her out. 

Forty-five minutes later, after the class ended, Saint Teacher asked Carol if the fan had bothered her?

“Oh,” she replied, her voice saturated with surprise, “I forgot all about it!”

“See, it wouldn’t have served you as well if I’d found a way to turn it off.”

For a minute Carol stopped packing her belongings back into their respective matching bags. “Oh yeah, thanks,” she said.

I’m not sure how deep that lesson sunk in, all I know is—I wish Carol peace in the world. And a debit of gratitude!
She taught me a lot.

Happy Sunday,
Carry on,
xox

*If your name is Carol and this offends you, this is the part where you unsubscribe instead of asking me to post an apology. It’s a joke. Lighten up.