Waiting

The reason I've had trouble writing these (wait for it: excuse) is because in the thousand days of doing idea, I believe I imagined everyday would be inspirational. While it's true every day is ripe with possibility for change, that change is not necessarily enacted on a monumental scale. And that's the hardest part (and the easiest, I suppose, if change only takes the first footstep forward).

Yesterday, I got off the subway one stop earlier to go the grocery store before work. Just before I got to work, I began walking behind a businessman who had a slow but purposeful gait. The way he walked entranced me. He was not exceptionally tall (although he did have large feet), but his strides, though gentle and calm, were wide. He was so easily, so serenely walking that I was lulled behind him. Walking behind him was a bit like meditating, a bit like being entranced. But, then, of course, after a few moments, I stepped up my usual power-walking clip - eager to stem the time of my tardiness - and as I passed him, there lay an almost fake looking new $10 bill. I've never before found paper money in the street. It was just lying there, with so many people around who could have but didn't or hadn't claimed it.

I felt confused. After being soothed and tempered behind someone whose footsteps elicited such quiet drive (seemingly legions away from the anxious way I run to wherever I'm going - which clobbers any sense of relaxation), I stepped in front of him and was (literally) rewarded.

Maybe it means nothing. Maybe searching for meaning in every day, in every step is deconstructing life into a scale that is not meaningful, is not helpful. Regardless, the weird happenstance of finding money in the street can't demean or diminish what I gleaned from my methodical walker - that achievement can be had without an unnecessarily grueling striving. That doesn't mean hard-work or aspiration is ablated. It just means there are many more ways to achieve goals than I might hem myself into. That said, here is perhaps my new favorite quotation from Anais Nin: "Life expands or contracts in direct proportion to one's courage."