In the Service
Oh me, oh my again. Went to my friends’ house last night for dinner. Thought I’d solved my Nest connectivity issue. Discovered disappointment when I arrived home and tried the proposed solution. I probably missed a step or two. I’ll try again. Maybe later. Meanwhile, I’m left wondering why it won’t connect and realizing how much of my life has been in service of the word, why.
Why did this happen? Why did that happen? Why was this said? Why was that said? You get the drift; life is a blizzard of why’s. Lots of them are technical and answerable with the right resources. And think how much better our lives are because someone asked why about any number of issues. But why, when it involves people, is tricky and the source of much angst, because in lots of cases, in fact most cases, the answer is really unavailable and even unknowable. And here I harken back to the wisdom of my six-year-old grandson who told his mother, when asked why a girl broke up with him in first grade, “I don’t know the secrets of her heart.”
And his old grandpa thinks that’s pretty much a pearl because grandpa has spent a lifetime trying to figure out why people did or said things, and usually making a hash of it, because his grandpa tended always to think the worst. And I don’t know why I’m writing in the third person. Suffice it to say that out of the mouths of babes comes the wisdom that it’s not a good idea to assign motives to people’s actions when you don’t really have a clue, and you’re almost always better off maintaining a peaceful frame of mind and being grateful for what you get. And what I have right now are good friends to spend time with and a thermostat that works even though it’s not connected to its app.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale