Sunday 21 July 2013

Case Study: Manifest Desires

 -- when what's desired involves more than one person.

I had everything planned way before the trip: after return from the west coast on Tuesday, rent a car and drive down, spend a couple of days before get packed and drive back the airport then fly out.

Then a few days before heading out west, it was suggested to me that I don't have to get back right away. Suddenly I got a couple of days of free time. It's too late to change flights to return later from the west coast. I could use the opportunity to visit a couple of people nearby instead. I wanted to visit my friend L and tell her all about what I've come to understand in the past year.  It'd great to finally talk to someone about it all in person.  Moreover, I finally felt I had understood enough to give her some tips on how to avoid the stress she experiences in daily life.

So I emailed her: I can visit you on the last week of the month, just for one night, is there a good time for me to come? The reply: maybe on one of the weekends.  I sensed the email that any weekdays, which is the only time I can visit, would be extremely inconvenient.  I pretty much resigned to the fact that I wouldn't get to see her on this trip.

Then just a couple of days before heading west, I decided to give her a call anyway, not so much to work out a plan to see her, but just to say hi.  She told me why it was inconvenient: she had planned far ahead so that out of all the days in a year, for that one week to be alone and stay in her house by herself so she can have some peace and quiet and get away from it all.  And I told her why I wanted to see her: not to catch up and gossip about the daily life, but to tell her about the spiritual understandings I've come to know for the past year, understandings that I feel comfortable to speak about for certain.  Through our conversation, we realized my purpose of seeing her and her goal of getting some alone time actually aligned.

Well, everything turned out to be perfect.  There couldn't have been a better time for me to see her: since she was off work, I got to talk to her from dinner time till 2am, and talked some more the next day until after lunch.  During her regular work day, she'd have to leave to work early in the morning and we would never be able to have the conversations we had.

While we marveled at such a perfect timing, I noted that the meeting happened because we both desired it. But we didn't desire the meeting, the meeting is but the manifestation of the desire.  On my side: I desired to talk to her about what I learned and tell her things I find helpful in daily life; for her: she desired to get away from the daily grind and be more in touch with her inner self, finding deeper understanding in her spiritual pursuit.  Our desires compliment each other and the universe arranged the perfect opportunity for the meeting to happen.

But the meeting almost didn't happen, and I think this is where I can learn a lot by examining why.  I always have a good intuition about people, about how they feel.  And I know this has done me a disservice -- for when I felt people being uncomfortable, I hesitate or feel very uncomfortable to push for my agenda.  But in this case, had I not push for my agenda and call her, something both of us desired would not have happened.

I think I need to realize that sometimes my agenda is also in the best interest of the other party, but it may not be obvious for the other party to see it right away.  In that case the right thing is do is to push for my agenda despite the discomfort I feel from the other party.  I plan to apply what I learned here when I see fit in the future, start with doing a bit more information exchange with the other party, just like in this case, and see if such perfect opportunity will come by more and more.  :-)


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