For Everyone Who Worries About The Kids In Their Lives Who Worry





Wednesday, November 17, 2010

One More Sleep

This is it. One more sleep. Just one more sleep until I get my new iPhone! Tomorrow is the day that I'm eligible for an upgrade, and off to the AT&T store I will go. I am very excited, right? Of course! I mean...I think so.

For those of you who haven't heard the drama, I lost my iPhone earlier this year in April. It was one of those mornings were I was rushing around and so not in the moment like I want to be. My family had been involved in a car accident the previous weekend, and we were blessed to come out of it with nothing worse than a totaled car and a broken wrist on my part.

That morning I needed to get my son off to kindergarten, and drop my daughter off with a friend while I went and got x-rays on my wrist. As any mom can imagine, nothing that morning went smoothly, and I was in a mad rush to get to the doctor's office on time. I dropped my son off at school and met my friend in the parking lot to hand off my daughter before racing to the doctor's office. Well, somewhere in that fast and furious exchange, I must have dropped my iPhone off my lap and out of the car. It wasn't until a few hours later, when I went to call my friend to check on my daughter, that I realized that the phone was missing.

I did all the backtracking, phone calling, and praying to try and find the phone, but it never turned up. A few days later, I saw the case to my phone lying in the middle of the road under the traffic light by my son's school. Excitedly, I ran out to get it, but sadly the phone was not in it. It was then that I realized that someone else was now the happy owner of a new iPhone.

My immediate reaction was to go to the AT&T store and buy another one. Surely my insurance would cover it. This wasn't the first cell phone I had lost or broken, so I had been through this before. One phone lost in a taxi in the city, another flushed down a toilet (don't ask - I wish I was kidding!). I knew I'd have to go through the annoyance of reprogramming all my phone numbers, but otherwise no big deal. Or so I thought. Apparently, there is no insurance on an iPhone and if I wanted a new one, it would now be $600 due to the fact that I wasn't yet eligible for an upgrade. $600? For a phone? Really? Wasn't there another solution?

And it was with that thought, that I stopped. I actually stopped myself for a bit - stopped my thinking, stopped my worrying, stopped my obsessing - just stopped. I was just in a car accident. I just lost my phone. I just lost 4 days trying to locate that stupid phone. What was I doing?

I'll tell you what I wasn't doing. I wasn't listening. I wasn't listening to the Universe that was trying to tell me to slow down. Trying to tell me to look at all the blessings in my life and to be so grateful for what I did have rather than
be upset by what I didn't. Even thought the car accident was in no way my fault, it was giving me a message. The message of how of little importance material things are compared to the health and life of those you love. So our car was totaled? My family and I were fine. The most precious possessions I have were unharmed in that accident. I believe the Universe was trying to tell me to slow down and enjoy them more.

But how soon I forgot that message. So what if I was going to be late for the doctor's appointment? It wouldn't have been the end of the world. But I forgot that. Forgot the message of slowing down and being grateful for all I had, and rushed myself and my kids once again. And once again, the Universe sent me a message. A message to stop. Slow down. Enjoy. Be grateful for the abundance of blessings in my life. Take the time to enjoy them no matter what.

Before the Universe felt the need to hit me over the head with a brick, I decided to listen to Its message. I would try my best to slow down, live in the moment, and be grateful for all of my blessings. And to show my commitment, I decided to put off getting a new iPhone for awhile. Even when I learned of a way to purchase a more affordable one, I decided to wait. Silly? Maybe. But for me, it just felt right. I wanted to try not adding one more thing to my life that would make it harder for me to slow down and focus on the moment. See if I really could do it.

Well, it is November and I made it. I wish I could say that I have been able to only live in the present moment since April and simplify and slow down my life at all times, but sadly that has not always been the case. I can say though that I have made great strides towards this goal and I truly feel more grateful, more content, and more at ease every single day. I am amazed by the joy and abundance that has come into my life simply by taking more time to enjoy, be thankful, and truly be present with my family and friends.

A great ending to this blog post would be for me to say that I have realized that my life is so fulfilled and abundant that I now know that I don't want something as silly as an iPhone in my life anymore. Hmmmmm... sorry, but I'm not quite there yet:)
I have learned that I definitely don't NEED one to be happy, but WANTING one...well, that is a whole other story!

May your heart be at ease,
Angela सन्तोष