the Zen of car repair....

Good Morning!!!!  

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  

It is hard to understand somtimes how life's little annoyances can be opportunities.  

I lost my muffler today, well, not actually lost, It kind of followed mt home.. Then it fell off....LOL  

Well..this was not the plan for the day....arggggg....   

I went to the local muffler place.

On the bench outside are 8 guys, waiting for people to bring in cars, and they take turns fixing them in order of arrival...  

Well, to say the least, I felt a little out of place on the bench, being the only chick.

I waited for my muffler-while-you-wait.   But.. instead of being annoyed, I looked at this as an opportunity to be out of my comfort zone. To connect with  people I normally would not get to meet...(no offense, but most of my dealings are with women) and men have such an interesting perspective.

So I was just listening and observing.

After a while, I asked one of the guys when they are usually busy. He said Saturday and Mondays.  

Then he said... ya know.....These guys work 60 hrs a week. It is more than 100 degrees in there....and don't you know.... that someone who waited all week will walk in here in a hurry, at 3:00...when we close on a Saturday...and offer to pay extra for these guys to fix their car...they don't care that this guy just wants to go home to his family.... that there isn't enough money at 3:00 on a Saturday to keep him there a minute past quitting time....  

Then he looked at me and said a powerful thing....

He said."Ya know...When people are in need, they don't care about anyone else, just themselves."  

 I had tunnel vision at that moment, and knew that the Universe was speaking through him at that very moment....    

I smiled...shook his hand thanked him for his wisdom....

He gave me my keys and I went back to my day.......  

That was the best hundred bucks I ever spent.  

Here is the thought for the day.  

I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share.
AUTHOR: Dalai Lama

 
Namaste,
Marianne Goldweber
Here is the web page:http://hometown.aol.com/blueroadspirit/myhomepage/business.html
Here is a link to my journal page: Walking the Red Road