Bad Luck or Intentional Creation?

Photo by: Aaron Gardner

This week I was traveling in Rhode Island on business and spent two nights in a Residence Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, not too far south of Providence (I guess everyplace in that state isn’t too far south of Providence).

Anyway, when I awoke Thursday morning and checked out of my room, I had a funny feeling as I was walking over to my car, if you define “funny” as that sinking suspicion that your car has been broken into.

As I approached my car, it turned out that my sinking feeling had been a premonition: the passenger side front window of my car was indeed shattered, thousands of bits of tiny green glass littering the seat and floormat on the passenger side.

At first I wasn’t sure if anything had even been taken. I have a Sirius Satellite Radio hardwired to my dash and that night I lazily placed the removable “dashboard” face into one of the console containers in the car, where it still was that morning. I even left a humongous PDA-like device that my company provided me to handle orders, scheduling, and email in the car right next to my Sirius face and there it still was.

So what was the target of this break-in?

About two years ago I stayed in a Marriott hotel in the Meadowlands, New Jersey, within walking distance of the football stadium where the Giants and Jets play. The place, as you might imagine, was a shite-hole and I made myself an easy target by demonstrating my break-in naiveity by leaving a detachable GPS right there stuck to the winshield.Which of course wasn’t there the next morning. What bothered me the most about that break-in wasn’t the fact that thieves took my GPS: they’re replaceable and relatively inexpensive. What really got to me in this particular intrusion was the fact that the thieves also vicked one of those cheapie electronic voice recorders that I always kept in my car to “jot down” thoughts and ideas I had while driving, since I spend so many hours behind the wheel and tend to be very receptive to creative thoughts while in the driver’s seat. It really pained me to think that all of those ideas, ideas for books, blog posts, and screenplays, were lost forever. My mind played with the notion that some stranger was sitting somewhere listening to all of these grand ideas but most likely the person just deleted the whole thing and tried to sell the device like new.

One thing that stuck with me about that first break-in, which in a way is tied to the second break-in, was the fact that displayed prominently on the dashboard in my old car was a small Buddha statuette, that I had placed there to remind me of my divine purpose in life and also to “protect me” while I drove so many hours every week. I thought to myself, how could some thief steal stuff with Buddha staring right at them? How could Buddha allow that to happen, for that matter?

Of course a statuette doesn’t “allow” anything, but I found it to be ironic that yet again, there was Buddha, placed even more prominently in my new car, surveying the inside of my car’s cockpit while this latest pilfering took place. “What did you see, oh little chubby smiling one? ” Then similar thoughts came up: didn’t these thieves realize I was “spiritual?” Didn’t the sight of Buddha dissuade them from their malicious intentions?

After I had reported the break-in to the hotel staff and summoned a cop to come over and file a report did I realize what the subject, or object, of this latest break-in was: a binder that masqueraded as a brief case, that contained a lot of essentially worthless “pitch material” for my sales job. My job requires me to present science and sales information to my accounts during the course of my visits so I purchased this nice binder to hold all of the pages of those presentations protected in three-holed plastic sleeves. The binder itself cost perhaps $90 and was manufactured by the same company who makes Swiss Army Knives so it had a cool look to it and may have given the impression to the thieves that it contained something valuable, and perhaps was even a laptop case holding a computer. Interestingly, I didn’t even use my own money to buy the binder (my company reimbursed me for it) and my insurance completely covered the cost to replace the window with no deductible, so in one way, the break-in and theft didn’t cost me anything. My sales assistant is FedEx-ing me all of the presentations that were taken, so the only thing I truly lost as a result of the incident was time and perhaps some piece of mind, some serenity.

In fact, I gained more than I lost.

What I gained was a reasonably inexpensive lesson that although we are generally safe and secure, it sure helps to help ourselves in that regard by not making ourselves a target for some kind of intrusion. The first night in the hotel I had brought every thing into my room and of course had nothing stolen. The second night I was a bit lazy and left the binder in the car because I knew it was materially worthless, although I of course didn’t realize that it may have appeared to be a bountiful prize containing an expensive computer, or whatever else of value people put into their briefcases.

Is this a message to me to experience more gratitude for the things I already have? I didn’t think what I had was valuable, but somebody else risked getting caught committing a crime in order to obtain something upon which I obviously placed little value.

Now that I’ve been broken into twice, I will be more than certain to esnure that my automobile doesn’t appear to be an enticing target. But more importantly, I would like to learn from this incident to be more thankful for what I have because I could lose it all in an instant.

An Ironic Footnote: Law of Attraction at Work?

One thing I find to be the most interesting about this whole thing is the fact that I had recently been ruminating about ditching this briefcase/binder thing because it was too cumbersome. See, normally I drive around with two briefcases: one that I already described, and the other, a messenger bag-thing, containing a notebook and a laptop computer. When I visit my accounts, I need my laptop, my notebook, and my binder, but usually don’t want to carry both bags slung over both shoulders, so would instead sacrifice one for the other and usually enter my accounts somewhat unprepared.

Over the last week or so, I had been thinking about getting rid of the binder/bag, transferring all of those presentations into a thin, lightweight binder that I could place into the messenger bag containing my computer and notebook, so I would have everything I needed in one bag and therefore be more efficient and streamlined. I was dragging my feet on that move, so I guess the “universe” decided to step in and make that transition happen a bit sooner that I had planned.

You really do get what you ask for. My lesson: if there’s something I’ve been meaning to do, I better do it myself now, or forces outside of myself might just very take care of it for me, and I may or may not like how those forces go about doing it.

I realize that this was a communication from the divine reminding me and The Monkey to be more conscious of our intentions, because quickly or slowly, violently or smoothly, our intentions always have a way of manifesting.