Seeing Me!

“I don’t like that look,” Andrew said to his business partner Shaun Hillberg as he entered the conference room for their monthly meeting.

Strolling towards one of six comfortable armchairs, positioned on both sides of an oblong table, Shaun pulled out the nearest chair, sat down, crossing his legs facing Andrew. Then he let out, “brother, my life is in such a mess right now; a solution won’t help me.”

“Damn!” Andrew said, unconsciously hitting the solid wooden table with his closed right fist, asks, “It’s that bad?” examining his hand as pain breezes through his fingers.

Shaun nodded in agreement.

“What will help you then?”

“An antidote!”

“Reading our financial papers, all things related to our business is going great. We had a thirty percent increase for the last two quarterly,” Andrew shares.

“That’s the only thing in my life that is going according to plan,” he complains, uncrossing his legs, pulling the chair and his body closer to the table. His hands in prayer position resting on top, he went on, “and I am wondering if it’s because you are involved.”

“So, what’s your problem?” Andrew inquires with a smile.

“Claudette has filed for divorce and is threatening to take me for everything I’ve got because she found out that one of my girlfriends is pregnant,” Shaun said without emotion or regret.

Andrew cleared his throat unconsciously in shock.

“Shaun Jr. has dropped out of college. My sixteen-year-old daughter is having a baby.”

“Damn!” Andrew released in double awe. “You are having a child and grandchild born in the same year?”

“Month too,” he adds without regard. “That’s why I need an antidote.”

“So, you are seeking immunity from all of the problems you have created for yourself and others?”

“I am willing to pay?” Shaun pushed out without care.

“Then I have the antidote, and it’s free.”

“I don’t like free, but I am desperate,” he said.

“Awareness is my antidote,” Andrew shares. “I am willing to share it with you.”

Sighing heavily and deeply, Shaun releases, “Life is not that simple.”

“It is when you are aware of yourself and the life you are living.”

Shaun’s thoughts slipped away in reflection, and he said when they returned, “I often wondered why you never complain of anything going wrong in your life. Being aware is that powerful?”

“I do have problems. But my awareness gives me the power to see me in action.”

“How can you see yourself in action?” Shaun cuts in.

“Being mindful gives you the power to do that. I have stopped and save myself often. It gives me the ability to see and identify various issues coming in time to stop many of them. I learn quickly, then find a solution by getting to the root of the ones I can’t control. After lessons learned, foresight became my pal,” Andrew said, then quickly began further explanation. “Being aware, my instincts, senses, actions, choices, decisions, and everything else I do that will impact my life speaks to me. Being mindful allows me to interpret my emotions positively, giving me the wisdom to make decisions that will carry me for many years. My parents are sitting on decisions they made before I was born.”

Shaun stared at him with open-mouthed-awe for a moment. Closing his mouth, swallowing, then taking a deep breath, he asked, “You can see yourself doing everything you do?”

Andrew nods.

“Can you give me a simpler explanation of my lack of realization, please. My problems have put my brain in a knot today.”

Smiling, Andrew dramatized, “It’s summertime, and your neighborhood is experiencing its third day of more than a hundred-degree temperature. Your body is on fire. The community’s large outdoor public swimming pool that you swam in often is only a few meters away. They open at a certain time. You are a very impatient guy. You want to cool off, so you went there early, knowing you would be undisturbed and have the pool all to yourself. You climbed fifteen feet up in the air on the diving baord, staring down at that beautiful, inviting, calm blue water begging you to jump. With promises of cooling your body, mind, and soul. A naughty child removed the warning sign that said, ‘the pool will be closed today for a cleaning.’ It’s only a quarter filled with water. But you can’t see that, because your mind is elsewhere.”

“I’m dead!” sprinted out of Shaun’s mouth hastily.

“Not if you are aware. If you are, then you would be able to focus and realize that even though a swimming pool’s water is stagnant, the pool circulation system allows the water to move in waves as if you are on the ocean. Then you would be able to see the gap between the height and depth of the water level that’s facing you. To dive into a pool eight feet must be the miniumn depth you will need in the deep end. Also pool with diving boards must be bigger than the ones without.”

“All of this comes from just knowing yourself and your life?”

“Yes,” Andrew says.

“So, alertness will sharpen my instincts and senses? I am feeling pain already.”

Andrew nods, smiling then add, “And you would be able to see yourself for who you are, giving you the power to change what you don’t like about you. Also, everything that is facing you will become clearer and with more understanding.”

“That sounds like a lot,” Shaun said.

“It’s life. Don’t you want to know more about you and the life you are living? That knowledge could have saved you from making all of the wrong decisions that have bought you where you are now.”

Sighing in deep thought for a few moments, Shaun said, “someone suggested I do meditation.”

“That’s the first step.”

“What about my problems?”

“Learn from them and don’t repeat them,” Andrew suggests.

“You mean I have to solve them?”

Staring at him in twisted brows, Andrew threw at him, “You created them. Only you can solve it. Awareness helps you to see them and fix them before they become a problem that threatens your life, not after!”

“Then an antidote will be too late,” Shaun fought back.

“You are the perfect example of a human living an unaware life! It’s like you dead, but alive at the same time. You really aren’t aware of what is facing you right now and all of what you are about to lose?”

I linked almost all of the problems I have with humans to their lack of awareness of self, of their lives, the daily decisions that affect them and everyone they encounter. So many of them aren’t aware of the life they are living. Even with all of the pain, they are raging in daily. Being mindful can save your life.

Can you see yourself in action? And stop yourself?

Knowing yourself is one of your most powerful advantages!

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.