A few weeks ago I wrote a post called, “Life’s Little Lessons & Why I Hate Chicken Balls“. After I wrote the post, I started thinking about other life lessons I’ve experienced. And then something dawned on me. The lessons always repeat until we ‘get it’. I recall something I learned many years ago that sums this up quite nicely:
The faces are different; the situations are the same.
Doesn’t that make perfect sense? To me, it means that, despite the ‘different characters’ that come along who ‘teach’ us these lessons, the lessons themselves are the same. They have the same theme until we get it. Have you ever noticed yourself saying, “That situation always happens to me.” Or, “I meet the biggest jerks of the universe all the time!” (okay, perhaps you don’t say that, but for the purposes of illustration, you see what I mean)!
I have noticed that when I seem to be ‘coincidentally’ having a situation happen over and over again, I need to make a concerted effort to figure out why it is happening. Case in point: for about 3 weeks I had the strangest thing continue to occur. Anytime I was at a store, no matter what store, no matter what I was buying, someone would reach their arm directly in front of me to grab something off the shelf; not one time did anyone say, “Excuse me”. Now, in my home and native land that would be grounds for a rather grandiose (yet polite) stare at the rude interloper.
This absolutely infuriated me time and time again. Every single time it happened I would say the same thing to the, “shelf-disturber”: “Um, did you need me to move?” A very passive-aggressive Canuck thing to do. I kid you not, each time the answer was something along the lines of, “No, you’re fine.” I’m fine? Well, I might be fine, but clearly you are not!
I remember thinking, okay, maybe this isn’t something that is considered insolent in Chicago. I do realize that Canadians are known the world over for being extremely polite and it’s for good reason: we are! However, I had to think about the intention of my inadvertent ‘teachers’. Did they think hey, I’m going to be rude here but I couldn’t care less what this blonde lady thinks. I doubt it. Did they set out to grab the shampoo staring in front of me with such fervor that I would become unwillingly acquainted with their overpowering perfume? Not likely.
After this bit of self-synopsis, I had to admit that in the big scheme of things, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Once I reached this conclusion, the, “space-invaders” seemed to vanish. Isn’t it interesting that it has literally not happened to me once since I chose to understand that I mustn’t make, “much ado about nothing”. Okay universe, I got that lesson, but I have a question: Do you think you could provide me with a lesson about winning the lottery and how I need to be happy with ‘only’ one vacation home, and not several? *biggest grin*
What about you? Have you ever noticed life lessons disguised as annoying patterns of repetitive occurrences? If not, I would like to provide you with a friendly challenge to become aware of them. See if you can ‘get’ the lesson, and don’t be surprised if they disappear altogether! I’d love to hear your thoughts about this!
The Chicago Files 