Lessons from a Phone Theft

A couple of weeks ago, my phone was stolen. I was out at a bar, a music venue, to be entertained by some friends. I put my phone down on a table and put my purse on top of it. A woman celebrating her 40th birthday invited me to partake of the taco bar in the next room. Picking up my purse, I went into the room and quickly loaded my plate and returned. I was gone less than 5 minutes.

After eating, I started looking for my phone. I thought it had to be in my purse. It wasn't. I went back out to the car to see if I had left it in there. Nope. Returned to the previous place where friends were playing music. Not there either. I recalled that when leaving the first place, I considered putting the phone on the roof of the car. By this time I was frantic. I must have done something. The phone must be somewhere close.

Of course, since it was my responsibility, no matter what happened to it, I was blaming myself. I felt horrible ~ the phone was only a couple of months old.

Once home, I reported the stolen phone to the phone provider. I found out the next day that since it was on a family data plan, it could be tracked. I also decided to let go of the self-blame. This was certainly a first-world problem. More than that, no matter what happened to it or why, it wasn't worth my health and stress.

With the help of my significant other, we began tracking it. It showed up miles away from home, miles away from either music venue. It stayed in that place for nearly a full day. As we were driving to put up reward posters in the neighborhood, I checked again for the phone's location. It was miles away from where it had been. We chose to play amateur sleuths and followed the tracking. It led to a restaurant. When we asked the people in the restaurant if they'd be willing to keep one of our posters and let us know if they saw it, they agreed. After telling all their staff about it, someone asked how we knew it was there. The manager replied that we had tracked it there. Shortly afterward the signal went dead.

The next day, I reconnected my old phone to our service. That night, prior to closing, a tech from our phone carrier called me to let me know that a phone connected to my cell number had been turned in by someone who had been asked by the thief to hack it. I could come in the next day to pick it up.... which I gladly did!

I learned several things through all this ~ besides making sure my phone is with me at all times and that there are ways to track missing phones. I learned that blaming myself didn't change anything. As a matter of fact, if I hadn't been winding my stress level up, I may have realized sooner that it had been stolen ~ and checked around more closely. I'm fortunate enough to afford a cell phone. Counting my blessings was far more helpful to my stress level! Follow the fun ~ that's what playing amateur sleuths with my significant other became ~ fun. Finally, once I relaxed, the Universe could flow through me in a more fluid fashion. I was fortunate to get my phone back with only the SIM card gone. By the time it did, three and a half days after being stolen, the thing that was my phone went back to being just a thing.

Have you ever had something stolen or lost? How did you respond? Did you blame yourself? or someone else? How long did it take to replace or return? What do you feel now, thinking back on that situation?

Loving the Fool

Think about the lessons you were taught as you grew up ~ the scripts that repeat themselves in your ear every time you move slightly off point. Sometimes they were overt statements made by a chastising parent or an angry sibling. Sometimes they were literally scripted by teachers, professors and mentors guiding us along the way. Sometimes they were delivered with all the flamboyance of the religious sermon they were designed to be. The words spoken, yelled or intoned were generally well meant, intended to provide us with a framework for social interactions.

My first reading of this quote had only the first half:

"I must learn to love the fool in me -- the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries."

The words wash over me like a wave in Mama Ocean, knocking me over and leaving me reeling from their power. Loving "the fool in me" was a truly new concept. All those pieces, the ones that I label good and the ones that I label bad, all those swings from one extreme to another, all of it was ~ and is ~ worthy of love. Worthy of my own love. Wow. That stuns me.

The next segment appeared in a more recent version:

"It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool."

That "fool in me" ~ the one I must learn to love ~ also encourages me to allow my too strong feelings and accept my lack of self-control for the sake of my own humanity. She protects me from my overbearing and pretentious self who resides beside her in my soul.

These words lap at my ankles, rising and falling with the tide, keeping the fool afloat and the tyrant at bay. I recognize the power-play within me. As I lean in to embrace ~ and love ~ the fool in me, the power of the tyrant diminishes.

What do you know of the fool within yourself? How do you assist the fool? the tyrant? What do you feel as you read the words of the quote? How will you continue to grow in loving the fool within?

Your Unique Potential

When I first read this Joseph Campbell quote, I thought about the career I chose to pursue when I was in school. I focused on that pursuit being the definition of my unique potential. I went away from the quote for awhile.... left the image sitting in a folder on my computer. When I returned to it, the words seemed somehow changed.

What truly changed was my reading of them. That very first line snags my mind with a wild image: "...never was on land or sea." As though what we seek is unique to each of us individually even if the basic job descriptions or life descriptions share the same wording.

When I consider the number of times I could have let my own uniqueness shine, I realize that I instead spent a chunk of time fading into anonymity. Why? Several reasons. One is that I am, at heart, an introvert. Being in the limelight does not come easily to me. Another is the fear of failure. In order to truly succeed at stepping into a fuller potential, there is a better than even chance of failure. Now I understand that 'failure' is simply a word with greater or lesser emotion attached to it. For me, it used to be greater. It's growing lesser with each passing season. I also was negligent of the possibility of success. What would it take? Was my dream, my desire, big enough?

An important lesson I've learned lately is that it is never too late to reach for a dream. I've been blessed with a number of course changes during my life. Currently, I'm heading for another. It's all good ~ and bringing me closer to becoming something that "never was on land or sea."

Have you reached your fullest potential? How unique do you see yourself being? Is there something more calling to you? Are you willing to head for your own course change? Where would that lead you?