I arrived 45 minutes late to Tony and Jayne's, my in-laws-to-be, apartment who had been staying in Boston for the past several months and had invited us over for a dinner of, as I recall, fried chicken, slightly undercooked potatoes, biscuits and cake with too little chocolate frosting, of which I gladly took a second helping.
One of their pet peeves happens to be tardiness. So when I arrived late, they chided me for that, as well as for not calling to let them know that I would be late, missing phone or not. I felt my reaction-o-meter needle jump slightly in defensiveness, but we had a lovely dinner and then we went home.
The iPhone 4, the latest must-have gadget from Apple since the iPad a few months early, had just been released that week and my work had just begun to allow us to have iPhones. So, it seemed, that this was my golden opportunity to get the iPhone 4...
So the next day, I spoke with the Phone Guy at my work, saying that I wanted the iPhone 4 and was certainly willing to pay for it myself, owning my responsibility for losing the Samsung in the first place. It wasn't a problem since I was due for an upgrade anyways.
There were several delays before the phone arrived for various reasons... the AT&T rep didn't respond to Phone Guy's e-mails or calls...when the phone arrived, the SIM card was defective... Phone Guy couldn't go to the AT&T store to get a replacement because of to a doctor appointment... I could feel reaction swelling and abating in my chest...as I worked to keep my disappointment in check.
Then the moment arrived. Phone Guy had gone out of his way to pick up a new SIM card after his medical appointment the night before and then made a special point to meet me in my office to present me with my new phone... which ended up being an iPhone 3GS and not iPhone 4. I was crestfallen! And simultaneously amused at myself for being crestfallen.
I mentally pulled myself together and asked Phone Guy what happend to the iPhone 4, and he said that it would take a couple of weeks to be ordered, they were too expensive and there were concerns that the bugs hadn't been worked out.
OK. So that's the way it went with the iPhone.
The Tao
The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my reflections on working out The Tao (or The Way) in my own life. I have been interested in The Tao since I was in my early 20s. I don't recall how I ever heard of it, or what attracted me to it, but it keeps resurfacing in my life in interesting and unexpected ways, as I am sure I will discuss in other entries.
The Tao is essentially a philosophy. It is not a religion, but a way of responding to the world, or more precisely learning to flow with the changes of life instead of resisting them.
Someone who is attuned with his own life, accepts it as it is--with no emotional resistance. By no means is this passive. When something is wrong and can be corrected, he corrects it. When something is broken, he fixes it. When someone is hurt, he performs first aid. He simply doesn't attach to negative feelings about any given situation because he has learned that the world is constantly changing and doesn't always match our projection of how things should be.
Taoism, however, is not some lofty, emotionless state of mind. Love, joy and grief all continue to be a part of the scope of emotions that a person feels. However, as one learns to accept situations as they arise--as his awareness that things, situations and people drift into and out of his life--resistance, frustration and ultimately all emotional suffering evaporates....more about The Tao later.
iPhone 4 Continued
So I learned that my iPhone 3GS is defective and must be returned. There was no emotional resistance to this! I put in another request for iPhone 4 with my work...so who knows...
