The Recipe

MORAL OF THE STORY:
You gotta follow the recipe and men don't listen!!! 

Thursday Aug 20, 09 approximately 5:45 pm I made a detour from work to return a modem to Bell Canada via the post office. Directly opposite the variety store/post office was a factorydirect.ca store. I crossed the street and entered the store looking for a reasonably priced mouse. Purchased the mouse $6.99 (too much) and a camera bag since it was only $5.99! As I was about to leave the store the sky suddenly darkened and opened up with heavy rains and endless fierce sounding crackling thunder and foreboding strikes of lightning.  

Normally I walk through the rain however that lightening stopped me in my tracks. I thought of all the silver bracelets I had on my hands – 15 to be exact, (13 on the left, 2 on the right) and I said am not moving till it’s over’.Is silver a conductor I had   no idea and didn’t care to test the theory. One woman beside me in the store suggests I take them off the bracelets and put them in my bag; I looked at her and said, “I will still have them on me”. We waited out the store together for 45 minutes watching lightening touch ground and listening to the thunder growl menacingly. On the radio we learnt that early in the day there was a tornado that touched down in Woodbridge and Vaughan Ontario. No one was prepared and everyone was caught off guard. Children in day camp were scrambling for cover one little 10 year old boy lost his life after the table he hid under collapsed, hundreds of houses were damaged many deemed irreparable the destruction left residence in horrified awe and at a lost as how to deal with the aftermath of the storm.

45 minutes and the sky brighten as if someone turned on the light switch in a darkened room, it stopped raining and life seem to go on as if nothing ever happened (at least in Toronto) and the experience was a figment of one’s imagination.

I thank God I was in a store when it all occurred and not in the middle of the street as it happened with others. Just a few weeks ago a little boy and his mother were struck by ligtening, the little boy was carrying a scooter, he eventually died. Was it a coincidence that I made an unplanned visit to the computer store? I think not, my intention was simply to go to the post office and drop of the modem and go directly home. I thank the powers that be that kept me safe. We have had many storms this year in Toronto, more than I have seen the twenty-four years i've been living here, this one was one of the worst.

One of the hardest lessons in life that I have had to learn is how not to take everything personally, to step back and see things clearly as they are/were and not as I would have like/liked it to have been. It is one lesson I still wrestle with from time to time as life tends to throw all sorts of scenarios your way. It is a lesson I try always to be mindful off by keeping it in the forefront of my mind and making it applicable in my everyday approach to life.  It is I must admit quite challenging at times because somethings sometimes comes close to the heart and others borrow beneath the skin but to forget, ahhh... well, to forget is to set oneself up to be continuously victimized and one cannot go through life being a victim of circumstance, actions, words and deeds of others or the ego.  So the next time you encounter a situation, experience a circumstance ask yourself, 'how much of this is my stuff and how much of it is not', is it really something i need to personalize?

REMEMBER - IT'S NOT PERSONAL

• When someone you choose as a friend chooses not to be your friend. Don’t take it personal. Just as you have the right to choose with whom you would like to be friends with so too they have the privilege of choice and that choice may not be you.
• When the romantic feelings you have toward another person is not reciprocated. Don’t take it personal rather see it not as rejection rather as a blessing because the person in whom you choose to love should be as into you as you are into them. The intensity should be equal nothing else will do. It's about worth and one should settle for less than they are worth.  Make no sense beating a dead horse.
• When you do not receive an invitation from someone you consider with no explanation or expression of remorse after the fact. Don’t take it personal rather see it as an opportunity to learn what is being said without saying. Get the lesson and move on.
• When your invitations to social outings are met continually with an endless slew of excuses for which there never seems to be an opportune time. Don’t take it personal rather see it as a lesson, accept and choose to invite those that make the time and are readily available and happy to socialize with you and enjoy your company.

Thoughts…

• At times certain things and circumstances feel personal. Yet if examine closely the situation we would see that in some cases it really isn’t personal as it first felt.
• Rejection it is not always a bad thing sure it stings and bruise the ego, sometimes though it is a blessing because when one door closes it leaves room for greatness to come in through the window.
• Through all things there are lessons and sometimes the zingers that stings brings the greatest growth and transformation.

D.S.B.Rhapsody©2009