As I arose this morning, freshly updated on the version of me that was to be a part of the world this day, I noted that a friend had called overnight, and left me a message on my voice-mail. He was distraught over recent developments in his life; marital dysfunction and work being among those. I made myself a cup of coffee and then called him.

As we talked it became apparent that he was all about rushing to meet life, but had not seen fit to see himself as life would see him. He was impatient to ‘get on with life’ but did not know of that which he would ‘get on’ with!

I listened, as I am wont to do, making mental notes as he went forward with his designs without a pattern. After listening to the ‘I don’t know why’[s] of my friend’s world, I was finally asked to share a thought. I asked him what he was going to do next on this day. He was taken aback by the question, regrouped and said, “I was going to file my taxes.”

I let the noise from his words settle in his brain and then asked him if he had had breakfast, a cup of coffee or taken a shower. He said no to each one. Then I asked him again, “what are you going to do next today.”

He seemed perplexed, then aggravated and finally said, “I told you, I was filing my taxes.”

He just could not grasp the full importance of my question to him, which he might have asked of himself.

I invited over to have a cup of coffee, some breakfast, and conversation, not necessarily in that order. About an hour later, he arrived at my door, smiling, but never the wiser as to our earlier points of conversation. He was, after all, a ‘good time Charlie’ personality. Life for him was reaction, much more than action or interaction, which probably accounts for the recent developments in his so-called ‘life.’

Now I am the last person to find fault with someone’s life, for it is still their life, however involved or uninvolved they are in shaping it! But it seemed incongruent that he had no plans for the next thing in his life, yet wanted to ‘get on with life.’

After a cup of coffee, some small conversation and a word or two from him about my appearance, in a most chauvinistic
way, I posed, “Are ready to file your taxes?’

He said, “Of course not! I have to wait for my wife to get the information together.”

The upshot of this whole experience in conversation with my friend is to illustrate how limited we become when we look only to the next big thing in our life, whether a chore or an event. How we do those necessary things that pop up between our fixation on the chore or event and the actual experience of doing or enjoying the chore or event, has an impact on our lives, and of course, on the chore or event. I was trying to get my friend to take a closer look at life, even of the aspects were too small for him to note consciously.

My friend is not one of those people in life that makes a whole lot of difference in the lives of others. He is quite, too busy trying to sort out his own life structures. Therefore, I figured since no one depended on him for much in earth-shaking terms, that he would be a good specimen for a ‘transformation of life’ experience, keeping in mind that he would be the transforming force and I, only a passer-by in his life.

Well, I am not sure how the transformation is going, since it is too early to see results. However, it is worthy to note that with this simple approach of bringing focus on the here and now and inviting his mind to enjoy those features of life, he called his estranged wife to arrange tax return preparations and she invited him over for dinner to discuss it. Now that is more than has happened in his life in many a month. The smile on his face as he left, was an instance to behold in the here and now.

Letting life wash over you is just another way of saying that you are prepared to be an active participant in life without seeking the dramatic that punctuate life on a daily, indeed, on an hourly basis. Try not to be consumed by the valleys and mountains of life, to the exclusion of walking on the plains with a happy disposition and the wherewithal to appreciate mountain and valley.