The title of this post explains it.
BUTTERFLY BLUR
Most of the time when I write here I have something specific to *blah, blah, blah* about, but today all is well.
BUTTERFLY IN ACTION
So instead of manufacturing a faux problem to blog about I’ll share a few photos of a pretty butterfly flitting about, with purpose and intent, on our butterfly bush.
BUTTERFLY CLOSE-UP
I believe that sometimes it all comes together and the best thing to do is to appreciate it. Like I’m doing today.
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MY WEEK THUS FAR HAS BEEN A DOOZY, filled with broken things, unreliable people, and inconveniently rainy weather. Nothing, despite my best efforts, has gone smoothly.
Exhausted after a trying day, I was sitting on our deck last night. I had a glass of pinot noir on the table beside me, and was minding me own beeswax, so to speak.
A bee, like the one in the photo above, came out of nowhere and flew directly, seemingly intentionally, into my glass of wine, then proceeded to do the backstroke in the wine in the glass.
As much as this sounds like I’m making up this story, I’m being literal: a large, healthy bee, managed to ruin my glass of red wine, while having himself the best swim ever.
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IT WAS HILARIOUS TO WATCH HIM going around in circles inside the glass, of course. However, at the same time, it was damned annoying because the wine wasn’t a cheap bottle of plonk– and I had to toss the contents of the glass, bee and all, over the side of the deck onto the grass below.
Zen-Den, gracious human being that he is, brought me another glass of wine from the bottle in the kitchen… and he handed me a paper cocktail napkin to use to cover the top of the glass while I continued to sit on the deck.
But me being me, an English major educated and encouraged to find the meaning in all things, I got lost in my head trying to figure out what it meant that a bee got buzzed, in a most dramatic way, right when I was trying to mellow out.
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THE BEST EXPLANATION I COULD COME UP WITH, based on Occam’s Razor‘s idea of simplicity + obviousness, was that the bee represented me this week, busy doing things, but not in ways that make me happy.
And that following the bee’s lead, I needed to speed up my wine consumption if I was to have as much fun and relaxation as this uninvited bee was having in my wine glass.
So, not being one to argue with Scientific Logic, or the Serendipitous Nature of the Universe, I drank my first glass of wine. Then sipped another one. And suddenly, as if it was all meant to be, everything seemed right within my world.
“Sometimes you’re the windshield, Sometimes you’re the bug…”Ā
I was listening to an older acquaintance chuckle as he told me about a scam he’d gotten caught up in.Ā He understood what had happened and how it’d happened.
After some research and many phone calls, he’d extracted himself from the scam and was a few hundred dollars poorer because of it.
He told me that in retrospect he realized that the whole mess was less about him being stupid, than about the scam being slick and sophisticated, taking advantage of his trusting nature + his unfamiliarity with certain details.
No surprise there, eh?
But what struck me about this conversation, that was more like a monologue, was that thisĀ older gentleman telling me this story wasn’t bitter about what had happened.Ā There was not one ounce of “I’m a victim” or “I blame _____” going on with this guy.
Instead, he was telling his story as a cautionary tale.Ā All he needed was for someone to listen and understand his predicament– and for someone to tell him that he “done good” solving the problem himself.
All of which got me thinking…
When was the last time you were part of aĀ conversation like this one?Ā SERIOUSLY, when did you last listen to someone who had been taken advantage of– and who wasn’t whining and emoting about the unfairness of it all?
Someone who was behaving like an adult who grasped the fact that in the rhythm of life not everything works out as planned– and that’s ok, too, because if you’re smart, you learn from it and move on.
Like this older gentleman did, in his quiet self-deprecating way.
LATE LAST WINTER I STUMBLED on an article that was about how to be more productive. I wasn’t looking for an article on that topic, but for some reason when I saw this particular article I stopped to read what it had to say.
The gist of this article, that I did not save the link to, told me that if anyone [who reads English, I’m assuming] sees the word ACHIEVE while working at any task, then that anyone will be more productive.
So being a curious open-minded person who happened to be bored on a winter afternoon, I wrote “Achieve” on a post-it note and put the post-it note where I’d see it when I sit at my desktop computer every day.
The premise of this idea seemed a little woo-woo to me, but I thought: Why not? I’ll keep the note where it is for spring and then when summer arrives I’ll evaluate what has happened.
ā¢ + ā¢ + ā¢
SUMMER IS HERE NOW SO it’s time for me to weigh in on the efficacy of this visual aid: that is, have I been inspired to new heights of productivity because I see the word ACHIEVE every day?
As much as I want to say “yes, this ezpz solution has helped me be more productive,” I’m going to be honest and tell you, my gentle readers, that I don’t think I’ve been any more or less productive since I put this post-it note in my line of sight.
I, of course, have no way of verifying my finding because I have no baseline level of productivity from which to start my study, so my conclusion is entirely subjective… rather like the idea in the article that prompted me to try this experiment.
But what I have learned about myself from this little foray into the land of inspirational signage is that for me the desire to do things has to come from within, and cannot be supplanted by one random word… no matter how clearly or often I see that word.
ā¢ + ā¢ + ā¢
QUESTION OF THE DAY
OR
ā¢ + ā¢ + ā¢
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 