Life Has It Covered

Last week, while walking to work, I noticed a vehicle parked on the street. It had super cool seat covers. They had the pattern that I often see on hats, backpacks, ponchos, hoodies and wallets that I sometimes buy from a little hippie import shop on Salt Spring Island.

It is called The Wardrobe.

A few days went by. I kept seeing this vehicle with its super cool seat covers. I almost kept walking, but something made me stop. I took out my wallet and retrieved one of my business cards. I wrote on the back, asking where they got the seat covers. I slipped it into the driver’s side window frame.

Then I carried on with my day.

At the end of the day, as I was walking home from work, I saw that the vehicle and the note were still there.

I got home and did a few things. And later on, I got a text message. It was an unknown number. The message said they got my note and told me they got the seat covers on Amazon. I texted back and explained the whole hippie island vibe and not knowing what the pattern was called. The sender said that if I searched for ‘boho seat covers’, I should be able to find them. I said thank you and that was that.

The next morning I got ready to head out and meet a new friend for tea.

We were supposed to meet at a pub, at 9:30 in the morning. This was weird, to be meeting in a place like that, at that time of day. But I went. I got there right on time and walked in. It was dimly lit, with only a few people sitting at the VLTs.

The decor was decent.

So I sat and waited. And while waiting, I checked my phone. A message came in just then from my new friend. She said she was going to be there in a few minutes. So I sat and waited. And while waiting, I became aware of a heavy smell of deep fried grease filling the air from the kitchen. It made me sick.

And I decided I didn’t want to stay there.

So I got up and headed towards the door. I was going to stand and wait for my new friend outside. But as I got to the door, I turned around for one last look at the place. I don’t know why. And when I turned back around, she was standing there, right in front of me.

I said hello and asked if we could go somewhere else. I explained why. She said sure. We headed out and across the street to a cafe. We got a table and started talking. A short time later, our server came up to me and told me that her coworker said to tell me that she really loved my hat. It is a patchwork floppy hippie hat that ALWAYS gets more love than I do, every time I wear it.

I told her to say thank you.

She said I could tell her myself. I turned around to see a young woman with a bit of a hippie look approaching. She had the biggest smile on her face and in her eyes. She walked up saying again how much she loved my hat. She asked where I got it. I told her I got it at the Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal. She didn’t say anything.

She looked at me. I looked at her. She still didn’t say anything.

I looked at her coworker. She looked at me. I looked back at the young woman.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

I explained that it was on Vancouver Island near Victoria, and where you went to get to the other smaller islands. She lit up at this and said her and some friends were going that way this summer. I said that was very cool, and that judging by her vibe, she would totally love Salt Spring Island. She said she needed to write that down and that she would definitely check it out. I said that if I was her age again, I would have started my life out there, instead of staying in Manitoba.

She seemed inspired by that. She praised my hat again and I said thank you (again) and she went back to work.

I went back to talking to my new friend.

A while later, my new friend got up to use the washroom. So I sat and waited. And while waiting, I thought about the girl and the island, and I turned around to see her standing right behind me. I motioned her over. I took out my wallet and retrieved one of my business cards. I handed it to her and told her to feel free to reach out with any questions about the island, where to go and what to see and do, or even about living there. She took the card from me and said she would.

She looked at the card.

And she looked at me.

I looked at her.

She looked back at me.

I looked back at her.

Her eyes went wide.

Her jaw dropped and she broke into a big smile.

She said her girlfriend found one of my cards on her vehicle the day before, with a note asking about her seat covers!

My jaw dropped.

My eyes went wide.

I looked at her.

She looked back at me.

I said that was amazing! And we both babbled excitedly back and forth.

And then she said that she was the one who bought her girlfriend the seat covers.

My mind was blown.

If I had never stopped to leave that note, and if I had stayed at the pub to meet my new friend, these things would never have aligned like they did.

But they did.

So I say take a seat…

Life has it covered.

The Downfall Of Us All

People like attention.

But not everyone gets it. So they have to try harder. To be more of a spectacle. They will put on a shit show. They will rant and rave and yell and display outrageous behaviour. That should get our attention. Because all I really want is your attention. Paying attention to people makes them feel important. It makes them feel like a celebrity. And nowadays everyone is trying to be a celebrity. They will say and do whatever it takes to steal the spotlight. They are finding new ways to get more attention. And this is what is motivating and inspiring people. Especially young people. They want to be center-stage. They don’t want to cure cancer. That’s just too much work. They don’t want to work towards saving the planet. That’s just too much work. They don’t want world peace. That’s just too much work.

They just want to be the most paid attention to thing.

I should know. I have worked with young people for decades. I have seen the shift in their life goals and aspirations. I recently asked my grade 7/8 class what they wanted to be when they grew up. Over half of them replied that they would like to be social media influencers. And surprisingly, this did not surprise me. It requires very little work. And most of the skills it does require are the skills that young people are learning on their own anyway. They are learning how to use social media. They are learning how to record and edit media. And whatever they are not learning on their own, they are learning in schools.

Schools are requiring them to learn everything on devices now.

So naturally they are wanting to be a big part of what they are learning every day is the world out there. It’s all about the big voices and faces of those who get the big number of followers. The more followers you get, the more popular you are. The more popular you are, the more you feel like a celebrity. And social media loves to breed this kind of motivation, inspiration and ambition. It applauds and encourages it wholeheartedly. In a BIG way.

It all starts with a simple social media account.

It provides an avenue for self-exhibition. You post yourself in some way, whether it be a selfie or a self-fulfilling desire. Perhaps it’s food you like. Or a place you visited. Maybe a pretty picture you took. Or made. And you wait and see who is going to like it. Or love it. Or react to it in some way, that makes you feel validated. Appreciated. Important. And maybe a little bigger inside. 

It is an over-inflated take on something that actually gives us very little.

For what it gives us is fleeting. It comes and then it is gone. It does not last or linger. It has no real substance, so it does not sit or stay with us for any period of time. And then when it is gone, we are motivated to find it again with something new to share. We crave the dopamine hit we get from getting some attention. It is a conditioned thing. We weren’t always this way. I mean, yes, we had the potential to be this way. It stems from a basic human need to be heard and seen and understood. We want to feel accepted. Feeling like you have a place in this world is perfectly normal. Even healthy. We all need a sense of belonging.

But now we be longing for more.

We go looking for it. We try to create it. We see how others get it and we try to do the same. It can be quite competitive. So we have to try even harder to get out in front of everyone else. We have to be louder, crazier, more controversial, more dramatic and more outrageous. And the world responds in our favour. All you have to do is look at the most “developed” nation on Earth. They elected a president who was all of these things.

For people just love a shit show.

(But The X-Files is a GOOD show!)

We used to line up to see the circus freaks. But television came along and we could watch them on Jerry Springer from the comfort of our homes. After that, the stage was set. All we needed next was a globally connected media source where we could interact as if we were part of one of those shit shows. And it came.

The internet connected us in ways that we have never been before.

We could now immerse ourselves in each other’s lives. We could be in each other’s living rooms. And bedrooms. And with that, we could get in each other’s business. We could now throw our weight around and weigh in on things we couldn’t before. Suddenly our opinions had weight. They had voice. And everyone had a voice! But nobody knew how to use it. They just had to say things that got people’s attention. It didn’t matter if it was what was really felt or not.

Only that people listened.

It didn’t matter how stupid or insane it sounded. In fact, the stupider and more insane it sounded, the more people listened. It was entertaining. And the outcome and effect of this was a global mindset that became confused and muddled. Suddenly the most preposterous ideas were being proposed and preported. It got people thinking and believing in things they wouldn’t have normally. They didn’t care if it was valid or valuable. They wanted to jump on the bandwagon.

They joined protests that served only the purpose of dramatic effect. They challenged and dismantled agreements about what was the greater good. It broke down the foundations of society. It ate away at reason, as the tendency to mindlessly follow gained a new following. 

And following that could lead us into the downfall of us all.

Its Life Is A Priority

Love is a living thing.

Trust is too.

But I have had trust and love issues.

I used to think it made me a bad person; to not trust people who gave me no reason to not trust them. I accepted it and owned it with shame. I even went through periods of being in denial about it. It became really noticeable and hard to navigate in my romantic relationships. I hated to think that I was so untrusting. But there it was. The feeling was there. And it always came up in times of conflict. My last two relationships were especially tricky this way. One of them lasted 8 years. The other one lasted 3 years. But in both of them I felt untrusting of my partners. And I didn’t understand why. They felt that I had a hard time trusting them. And they would call me out for it. And I would deny it, because I couldn’t understand it.

They would argue that they gave me no reason to not trust them.

They didn’t cheat on me. They didn’t lie to me. They were trustworthy partners.

But if we are being truthful, they did lie to me. But they usually came clean about the lies. They showed guilt and remorse for having lied to me. So this should have restored and built up trust. And in some ways, it did. But it also made me wonder sometimes if I was hearing the truth, or not. Because I had also come to learn about why they had lied to me. And it was always for the same reason. Every time. With both of them.

It was to avoid conflict and confrontation.

Being honest takes courage. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable. And being vulnerable with your partner takes trust. You must trust that your partner will not get upset with you. That they will receive you with compassion and care. That you will not be attacked for being honest about something potentially controversial or even hurtful. You must feel safe with your partner.

And this is where trust starts to work both ways.

For what I have learned is that my trust issues stemmed from feeling unsafe. I recently came across a video from a guy who talks about relationship issues and solutions. In it he says:

“Trust is so much more than confidence that your partner isn’t going to cheat on you. Trust is confidence that your partner is there for you when you need them; that they care about you. They care about what you need to feel safe, loved, appreciated and desired. That they think you’re important enough to respond to with kindness and compassion. Trust is faith that when I need them, if I reach for them during a vulnerable moment, that they will be there for me. I can count on them. They are my person. Trust doesn’t require perfection, just consistency. If we truly want to say that we love someone, we should want them to feel like they can trust our words and actions, right? They have confidence in as a partner that we will move in the direction when they are hurt or in pain. Especially if we unintentionally caused it. The way this shows up so often is in our conflicts.”

I realized that what I was feeling in both of those relationships was that I was not ‘safe, loved, appreciated and desired’. I mean yes, at times I did… but not consistently. And this is FUNDAMENTAL to a healthy foundation of trust in a relationship. My partners would on occasion receive me with hostility when I approached them with vulnerability. They would be inconsistent with warmth, desire, loving care for my feelings, and they would both make me feel like I was not a priority. Or feel like my feelings were not a priority. And it was because of this, that I felt untrusting.

I simply did not feel safe.

I wish I knew then what I know now about this. If I had, I could have advocated for my needs better. I also could have given voice and reason to what I felt, in understanding it better. And that would have empowered me to make healthier choices for myself. But as it was, I was unable to do these things. And so I went through the painful moments and motions of self-defeating behaviours and situations, trying to pour faith into places where I felt unsettled. And it came at great personal cost.

It cost me a lot of calm… and sleep.

And when I tried to ask them about what I was feeling, or why, I was met with defensive anger, hostility and accusations that I was attacking their character. And this in turn worsened my state of trust. It made me feel very unloved and unwanted and like I was such a bad person for these things that I was feeling. And all I wanted really, was to understand and to feel better about the things I didn’t understand.

We must all learn to know and understand things about ourselves better. And in that pursuit, we must learn to trust ourselves. If something doesn’t feel right, we must believe that there is a reason for it. And that reason may not be because there is something wrong with us. It could just be that there is something wrong with a situation.

And if there is going to be trust between two people, they must trust that each can be vulnerable and open with one another; that the other will not reject or abuse them for their feelings. For their love is like a plant. And as a living growing thing, it needs to trust it will be cared for. It will receive warmth, water, light, love and nourishment.

It will not be left alone, to whither and die. But rather, it will know that it is safe and cared for and its life is a priority.