Mind Boggling - Chapter 2

Mind Boggling

By Njeri Mucheru-Oyatta

The fear of change. I am certain that someone has written about that somewhere, just don’t know where. I decided that my need to discover the reason for my being born is stronger than a few small changes in my life and if the changes become uncomfortable, I would just have to find a way of adjusting. No use imagining the worst, if the change feels good, then only good will come from it.

So I have changed not just giving way in traffic, even in the lifts. In the past I would run into the lift and quickly press the close button so no-one else gets in to stop the lift on floors other than mine. Or, if someone was running hoping to get the lift before it goes, I would gladly lean back and watch the doors close in his/her face. Can you believe what a mean person I was and how much hate I was generating from the time I got into my car to the time I got off the lift!! I can’t imagine how I was able to ignore such meanness!!

Needless to say, now I TRY to hold the lift until am sure that no-one else wishes to get in and just wait patiently even though it stops on all the floors before mine. The truth is that sharing lifts is inevitable even for highly placed individuals in society who still have to be accompanied by body guards. Best thing then, is to find a way to deal with the sharing and crush all feelings of selfishness.

I will repeat here that giving is NOT easy. Telling yourself that those others are people like you just trying to get to where they are going will not always work. I had to find some way of fighting the strong urge to maintain my old ways. I had to shift my way of thinking about the idea of giving way in traffic and sharing a lift. So what I did is I asked myself what difference the giving was making in my life and realized that when I give, I feel good about myself and the good feeling lasts through most of my day as I keep giving. In other words, my stress level has reduced significantly with the simple act of giving way in traffic and in the lifts. I realized that I spend quite a lot of time in traffic and taking lifts and if I spend that time giving, I will be feeling good most of my days and I am. Yet, I have not spent any extra time or money on this feel good remedy! In fact, I even have time to do things I didn’t know I could, like write!

Now that I had made a habit of giving in traffic and in the lifts and was feeling good, I decided to look for something else in my life that could make me feel even better.