The fascinating thing about looking for love or anything of the above items in all the wrong places is discovering what is found in its place. I’ve come to realize it’s all about intention and Divine Timing. If something does not want to be found or I wouldn’t appreciate the discovery as much now as I might when I’m in full blown panic, it will probably remain in its clever hiding place.
Take the package I shipped from Alaska. In order to lighten my load I decided to send a few of my heavier treasures home. I selected the medium priority box and paid a hefty handling fee for the gift shop to take the package across the street to the post office because it didn’t open until 8:30am and my bus left at 8am.
Two weeks later, the package is still at large. Since I couldn’t find my receipt, I had to resort to other measures. I Googled the hotel, got the phone number, and asked to talk to the last person known to have seen the package. The woman at the gift shop in Tok readily confessed that the package did not leave the Westmark until sometime this week. What part of this week remains a mystery.
As Wander Woman incarnate, my motto is, “Not all who wander are lost.” Consequently I’d like to believe the same thing about my package. It’s not really lost. It’s just taking a little side trip like my luggage has been known to do. (Once I was flying from Santa Barbara to Moline. My luggage, however, decided to fly from Santa Barbara to Austin then on to Dallas then up to Chicago and eventually arrived in Moline a week later.) Who says inanimate objects don’t have their own agenda?
One of the big lessons I’ve learned since my last birthday is how much I don’t know and how much is out of my control. While this can have the debilating effect of depressing me beyond belief, most times it’s actually quite liberating. It's like a declaration of independence from being the knower of all things.
Not that anyone ever bequeathed that title upon me, but like Oprah, here’s what I know for sure. Life is a grand adventure, an endurance event full of twists and turns, hidden obstacles, synchronistic meetings, and unexpected allies and noble friends (who turn out to be more like enemies) who force us to grow.
The only way to find what we’re looking for is 1) to know what we’re looking for, 2) to know why we’re looking for it, and 3) to let go of how it looks and when we actually discover it.
Sometimes our expectations are spot on and something will look or feel exactly as we imagined. Just like sometimes the keys will be hanging on the same hook in the morning that we hung them on the night before. All the dreaming, scheming, imagining, visualizing, and affirming make the moment when we achieve the desired outcome or reach for the keys and find them exactly where we left them seem as natural as breathing.
But more often than not, success sneaks in the back door and takes us by surprise. Someone borrows the keys to run an errand and leaves them on the kitchen table next to a sunflower or a bill needing to be paid. The initial frustration turns into gratitude as we discover the extra effort required to switch from autopilot into present moment yields an unexpected jolt of awareness or joy.
It’s like finding an old love letter tucked inside a box of bank statements or having your favorite pair of earrings fall out of the purse you pulled out of the closet to loan to a friend. Oh, happy day when our beloved items at last find their way back to us! And somehow we value them more after having to live without them for a time.
Although I struggle with the amount of time I spend looking for things each day and try to rid myself of weapons of the mass distraction that contribute to the frequency of such losses, I do make a concerted effort to expand my capacity to be delighted and amazed in the search and rescue process. This way, by seeking I find more than I had any idea I had lost.
What wonders have you found in your seeking today?
