A Curious Table
A single parent, Don had recently moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere after finishing raising his daughter and finding himself in an empty nest. He had met some new people there. Things evolved. He was a contractor. One of the people he met was remodeling a house; he ended up making friends and moving in. A series of coincidences and choices evolved.Don was surprised when his roommate brought home the small, curious-looking yellow end table. “Where’d you get that?” he asked.“I found it at the antique store,” he explained. “I thought it would be a good table to put over there—for the telephone.”Don began pointing to each mark and stain on the old table, obviously an odd one and most likely one of a kind. “That came when I stored a can of oil on it in the garage,” he said.Then he carefully explained each of the other idiosyncrasies about the table. It had belonged to him over thirty years ago. He and his family had given it away when they moved from the area to another part of the United States.“Don’t you think that’s odd?” he asked. “Don’t you think it’s curious that table would come full circle like that—and end up back with me?”Many of us find meaning in the little things in life—whether we call them signs, markers, or guidance—that reassure us that there’s some kind of order, we may be on track, and there is some kind of Divine Plan.It’s easy to wonder as we make our choices the best we can—combined with circumstance, fate, and the things we can’t chose—if we’re on our path.Am I where I’m meant to be? Have I wandered off? Is there a reason I’m here? Should I be someplace else?When things start going wrong and collapsing around us—particularly in the areas of finance, health, and romance—we wonder if we’re doing something wrong. While most people agree that it’s important to look for the lesson if and when things start falling apart, it’s not necessarily a sign that we’re on the wrong path.Life may be trying to get our attention, point something out. It may be a natural cycle in our lives—a cycle that we didn’t know about or expect. Or it may be something else.When I hit a wall—when I can’t move forward—it’s usually a sign there’s a lesson at hand, something I’m not seeing either because I’m trying to control everything or because I’m moving too fast. I usually have a process I go through—stubbornness, trying to control things, trying to push through that wall, and thinking that everything is a mistake. I usually go through this process first, before I’m ready to become willing to learn.“I’m walking through that swamp again, wearing those concrete boots,” I said to a friend.“Well, all that probably means is that life is trying to slow you down so you don’t miss something that it wants you to see,” she said.How do you determine if you’re on track or not? Many of us have silly little signs that other people think are weird, but those signs can mean a lot to us.Trusting ourselves—based on listening to what others say and our own inner voice—is a choice.Believing that there’s a Plan is usually a good bet, too. The path is rarely smooth. Sometimes the lessons we learn repeat themselves. Surrendering control and asking, What am I learning now? isn’t something we do just once.Most of us find ourselves making that hard call at least once a day.Sometimes a wall isn’t really a wall. It’s just the next obstacle on the course.When in doubt, don’t assume. Ask.From the book: Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making It Matter
