I have a microwave that does little reminder beeps when the food is ready. After it’s finished heating the food, it will beep intermittently every couple minutes to remind me.
I’m a busy mom, so I multitask. Put the food in, pull out a load of laundry, start folding, or maybe sit down to answer some emails. It’s fascinating to watch what my mind does.
“Good, you’re going to eat. You were getting hungry there.”
“This thing is going to remind you. That’s kind of annoying. You should take the food out after it goes off because you don’t like being annoyed.”
“It’s done. You should go get that. You should eat now.”
“It beeped again. You should go get that. Don’t you want to eat?”
“It’s probably cold by now. Gotta warm it up again.”
“Good. Go get the food. Good thing you listened to me. You should finish this before you start something else.”
Here’s what’s fascinating. I will start another task, maybe complete it, maybe not. At some point, I get up and eat the food. But when do I do it? When my mind tells me to? No. There’s no apparent reason for it. Maybe I fold half the laundry, maybe I fold all of it. Maybe I answer 5 emails, maybe I only get part-way through 1.
Why is that interesting? My mind narrates the experience, and then takes credit for the decision that was made. But IT didn’t actually make the decision or do the behavior!
Let me say that again.
The narrator I’m conscious of didn’t make the decision. I don’t even know what made the decision. I just got up, walked to the microwave, and pulled out the food. My mind doesn’t even narrate it as it’s happening. It narrates the last action as the current one is happening. It takes credit when it didn’t even know what was happening until AFTER the fact.
My body, life, whatever is taking care of me before I’m even conscious of it. As Mavis Karn would say, “That’s a cool app. I wonder what other kinds of cool apps we have we don’t know about?”
So what’s the point?
What if this is the process for everything else in your life? What if you can relax into life? What if your narrator doesn’t know jack shit until after the fact? What if…. You are not your narrator? And what if *drumroll please* it’s not up to you?
What if ending your drinking habit isn’t up to you? What if healing from bad experiences isn’t your responsibility? What if ending this relationship isn’t a decision the narrator in your head makes?
What if the intelligence of life is behind your current habit? And that habit will fall away all on it’s own when you see the intelligence of life behind it? What if decisions are made, and no matter what happens, it’s the kindness of life pointing you back to yourself?
Just–what if?
Maybe the apps got it.
**Gotta go get that soup now. Probably cold again.