Do you ever wonder “what was the point of that?”
Like two days ago, when you tried to make Teeccino coffee alternative in your Airbnb and accidentally damaged the antique wooden countertop and got billed €250 for repairs because they had to sand down the whole counter. That ever happen to anyone else? Just me? Ok, too specific I guess. But I digress.
In one sense, you could say these are (sometimes expensive) lessons. We pay a ‘course fee’ to learn each one. That usually helps take the sting out of it in the moment. Never again will I set an Italian coffeemaker on a wooden countertop.
And maybe sometimes they’re just that (but I doubt it).
Most of the time, if we can avoid getting blinded by the small stuff, and unfocus our eyes a bit to see the bigger picture, like one of those Magic Eye 3D art pictures, we’ll see a beautiful sequence of events that unfolded as a result.
Allow me to explain via a collection of short stories I’ve observed in my own life over the last few years, inspired by a (different) episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry suspects that no matter what he does, he always comes out even in the end.
These are small everyday things, not life-changing events, but demonstrate just as well the infinite organizing power of nature at play.
(And so far, if we’re keeping score, I always come out way better than even—and so do you, if you know how to see it.)
The Green Room
In April of 2023, I was sitting in the green room at the International Music Summit before the grand opening was set to take place. I had been invited by the founders to give some brief remarks about my Art of Areté platform for well-being and self-realization that takes place at IMS, and I was looking forward to the opportunity to share what I had been working on in front of a packed room of the entire European music industry. I arrived at 11:30, exactly as I was instructed, and waited for the founders to show up. While waiting, I struck up a conversation with the CEO of a major streaming service. At 12:15, when nobody showed, I wandered out to the stage and saw the opening remarks had already concluded; I had missed my chance. Turned out the founders had bypassed the green room and went directly to the stage, incidentally leaving me hanging. I was bummed in the moment and felt like I had missed an important opportunity. But a few weeks later, I secured a partnership and budget to curate the wellness programming for that CEO’s upcoming summit, which all started with that accidental backstage exchange.
The Fraud
In June of 2023, I had to get a new credit card number because someone had used mine fraudulently. In the moment, I was annoyed about having to re-enter the new number on dozens of different monthly subscriptions. I couldn’t see any evolutionary benefit to having to ‘waste my time’ in this way. A week or so later, I was traveling with my dad, and wanted him to experience the brand new Delta lounge at LaGuardia airport in New York. He had never indulged in such frivolity in his life and he deserved it. Since I hadn’t received a physical copy of my new card yet, I was forced to use a backup card to pay for his entry as my guest to the lounge. The same backup card I had used to pay for my extra checked bag. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the backup card I used had a benefit that covers up to $200 per year in incidental expenses on Delta, so both expenses were reimbursed by American Express. I remembered back to the fraud incident and changed the past by re-contextualizing it through the lens of this fortuitous albeit small financial windfall.
The Gong
This past month in Ibiza, my friend was planning a gong bath on the island and needed a gong, so I connected her with a gong master who rents his gongs. Gong gong gong. My friend convinced her husband to drive across the island at 7am to pick up this gong, which they thought would be quite special, given the €300/day rental fee. When they picked it up, they were disappointed to find it was much smaller and less impressive than they hoped—and out of tune. But my friend is a meditator, and she remained present in the situation. She ended up connecting deeply with the gong master himself. She liked him so much that she ended up doing a vocal coaching session with him later that day that she absolutely loved. She later said the value of the session for her, as an emerging vocalist who has struggled to develop a resonant voice, was easily worth the gong journey, and instinctively realized that it was never about the gong itself, but about the greater opportunity to work on her vocals. She ended up canceling the gong bath entirely!
…These are just a few simple stories. And the cynic in you might want to say that these are the exception, not the rule. But that cynic would be wrong. Only evolution is ever happening, and there are just no such thing as meaningless random events—only distracted and over-stressed people who are too focused on the day-to-day to see the bigger picture. Don’t be one of them!
And that burned countertop? Well, it’s now blossomed into today’s letter—which I suspect will have a knock-on effect for others who may read it, and so on.
Let’s discuss these and other ideas during Collective Effervescence, our online group meditation series, this Sunday May 12 at 12PM ET. Drop in for meditation only (first 30 min) or stay for discussion + Q&A on this and other life topics from the Vedic perspective. Join the WhatsApp group to receive reminders 24 hours before each session, or use the below links to have all upcoming dates automatically sync to your calendar.
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Music today is The Bigger Picture by Atlanta’s Lil’ Baby, a powerful song about police brutality and the state of the world, which he performed live at the Grammys in 2021. Lil’ Baby is not to be confused with Da Baby, who was once arrested for assaulting a promoter who didn’t pay him promptly and pouring apple juice on him while his security guards held him down, and is probably not a meditator.