Have you read Harry Potter? One of the ideas I always liked in the story is that there is this room nobody can find unless they are meant to. It's called The Room of Requirement, and when you do find it, it is invariably equipped with what you need.
I work midnights in a large department store. If I worked during the day I'd be in trouble, because I have no idea where the changing room is until I walk into it. It's right in the middle of the store, but there aren't any signs for some reason, so it just looks like a wall until - boop - there you are. I've tried to find the changing room on purpose dozens of times and never could. I've not been looking for it dozens of times and there it is. It's my Room of Requirement, and it boasts one loveseat and two locked doors leading to where you can try things on. How does the room know I need a loveseat, that I need one every time I walk by? When I am off the clock and stumble into the room, I park myself on the loveseat for a few minutes and smile inwardly, amused.
What I love about people is that they are giant department stores. You can walk around in them all day, pick their brains and learn who they are well enough to predict what they'll say and do, how they'll handle situations, and they'll still surprise you. We have this one very old woman that comes in sometimes at around 2am, and she talks incessantly, makes absurd requests, and drives the staff crazy. Some people have taken to hiding when they see her coming. As newer folks, Wade and I hadn't met her yet, so she grabbed us both to reach the butter on the top shelf. Not just reach it, but check the expiration dates. Not just check the expiration dates, but sort them into piles to check it against every other butter on the shelf. Not just sort them into piles, but go find a calculator to add up the amount she was saving on the sale if she got this or that number of tubs because she didn't trust our mental math. And then she wanted the 12 with the longest dates. Did we have any in the back that weren't out yet?
I practically giggled the whole way though this; feisty old ladies are my favorite. But Wade... Wade had made it plain that he hates almost all people universally. He complains almost constantly about everyone. Coworkers, customers: everyone receives the same scorn. I've learned to speak to him on his own terms, but I can't seem to crack through the venom and bring him out into the light at all. And this old woman grabbed him from his work and took up nearly a half hour of his jam-packed day by the time she had her 6lbs of butter and rolled her cart away. I expected frustration and malice. I expected the usual tirade of cussing sarcasm. But when he turned to look at me, he had the most angelic look on his face. There were tears in his eyes. He said, "she was a total pain in the butt... just like my grandma". And walked away.
That crazy, bossy old lady had found Wade's Room of Requirement, had left him soft and vulnerable for just a minute, long enough to show that it was possible. She stumbled through it without even knowing it was there. I had tried a hundred times to find the soft side of this angry person, tried gentleness and humor and patience, she had done it by annoying him. And it didn't even mean anything to her. She was just a lady with butter.
Was I okay with that? Was it so important that I be the one that helped him or could I let a random stranger do it? Was it okay to not be in control of this? Sometimes in life we aren't meant to do a certain thing and that can offend our egos. Life, what we call "the Force", has a way of taking us down a notch, of saying "nerts to you!" right when we get comfortable with an idea, like my idea that I was the one to help Wade.
Are we so obsessed with the results that we don't see we're holding the wrong tool, are taking the wrong approach, are the wrong person for the job?
The Tao Te Ching says:
Do you think you can take over the
universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.
The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it.
Can we really object to the way things work? Whether we fuss or not, things seem to find ways of happening however they were meant to. In Christianity there is a saying that "the Lord works in mysterious ways", which I've always taken to mean that there are strange, tiny miracles all around us every day; they happen without planning, without warning, and are totally outside of our control. Can I sit back and let the Force do its work, leading each person in the path they are meant to walk? Can I let each person have their own path? Can I open my hands and let the Room of Requirement find each person as they need it without needing to meddle, without attachment to the result?
