Life's Little Lessons

To some, our purpose is to live a self-conscious, mindful and fulfilled life by learning through the events of our lives, negative and positive, in order to evolve into well-rounded and considerate individuals. Caring for others, kindness, self-control, optimism, determination and patience are all valuable gifts to be nurtured, but in contemplating our grand motif in only life's big events, where we hope to find meaning and connection, we neglect the important lessons to be learned in the seemingly inconsequential. Every occasion should teach us something. 

At some point during the night when I lived in Taiwan, I would lie on the couch and watch a show on television. The remote was usually found on the coffee table within reach of my arm on the couch, or if not on the coffee table, a table nearby, or the loveseat beside the couch, or if I looked up, on the window sill. The clicker had yet to discover its place. 

One night, I spread out on the couch after a long day and reached for the clicker but my hand didn't find it, nor did I notice it on the coffee table when I gave it the once-over. My eyeballs flickered around the room and scanned the kitchen table as I stood to check the couch, where it probably fell behind the cushions. I pushed the coffee table aside with the back of my knees and searched behide, between, and under, all the cushions on the couch.

I knelt on the tiled floor on grizzled knees and looked under the couch to see only a gritty floor consumed by hairy dustballs rolling away in all directions. I tore the loveseat apart. I went to my bedroom. I looked beside my bed, under my bed and on the table beside my bed and scanned the top of my dresser; the drawers were rifled and the cupboard upended.

I returned to the kitchen and ran my hand down the counter, opening and slamming cupboard doors. Nothing on the bookshelf in the corner. I turned on the overhead light in the spare room. Of course it's not here, ya dumb-ass. I returned to the living room and turned on the television without the clicker. CNN. I flicked it off. 

Dejected, I went outside to the washing machine to search the balcony and the junk left on it, somebody else's junk, not mine. Deflated, I returned to the living room.

I fell to the couch. My wobbly head and lifeless eyes drifted to a blank television screen across the room where I saw my reflection, a reflection smothered in exasperation and frustration. I dragged the coffee table towards me, cursing. Then froze. WHAT THE HELL!

The clicker, right in front of me lying on the coffee table. How the hell did I miss that? As I stared, it took on a life of its own and I could swear it was laughing at me. This is a movie! A sinister object plots to destroy the mind of its owner by popping up indiscriminately from room to room. 

It was there the whole time. Or was it? I had doubt, that's how spooked I was after I had searched the room five times over and tore the place inside out. Lesson learned: slow your blood down and open your eyes.