Reversing course can take much time and much space, or no time and no space.
Watching a big semi-trailer drive into a warehouse parking lot and turn around, carefully turning, many times, to and fro, to back into a loading dock, I saw how much time and space the driver needed to reverse his direction.
Changing direction and backing the truck into the loading bay took a long time and the whole parking lot. But it takes no time to pull away. Shifting gears is all that is required.
So too with my life. I can pull into the parking lot of life facing peace and serenity, then spend a lot of time reversing direction and backing into a bad situation.
I start the day well after a morning prayer and meditation. But people are difficult. It is hard to maintain my spiritual direction with the grinding minor offences that are committed against me. Drivers cutting me off in traffic, people in line before me in the coffee shop ordering complicated drinks, fellow workers criticizing and slacking off. Carefully, I reverse direction and back into the loading dock of life. By the end of the morning, I have reversed my spiritual direction and I have backed into the loading bay of anger and self-pity.
It has taken all morning to get there, surely the rest of the day is doomed. But appearances are deceiving. I am like the truck backing into the warehouse.
The driver of the truck, having carefully backed in, can immediately and easily drive out. All he needs to do is put the gear in forward and drive away.
It may have taken me all morning to back into the anger and self-pity loading bay, but I can easily drive away; all I need is a change in attitude.
Instead of thinking the world is out to get me, I can be grateful for a morning coffee. Instead of believing I am owed, I can silently forgive someone for something they didn’t know they did. Instead of a posture of I know it all, I can become teachable and ask for help.
Attitudes are wonderful, they are powerful and quick, they can change my day in an instant.
Related posts
Beauty in the Wreckage
Perception Transformation
