Life continues to teach lessons every day if we only are aware of them. Case in point: last Sunday as i walked out of the house with our dog, a bit bleary-eyed and wearing loose sweats and not quite 100% awake, I did happen to notice that the Sunday paper was not sitting on the driveway. Walking the dog I mused how this little incident would not make my partner very happy--he loves the Sunday crosswords. So as I re-entered the house to announce the lack of a newspaper, I said I would go to the store and pick one up and be right back. I also remembered at that moment that the day before I had received a card from the newspaper announcing their new online paper. Immediately thought that I had inadvertantly cancelled our regular subscription. I told my partner about this, and said as soon as I returned with the paper from the store, I would call the paper to get our delivery reinstated.
Now it seemed perfectly logical to assume that the cause of the lack of newspaper was due to my signing up for the online paper. But when I returned with the paper from the store, which turned out not to be the local paper after all, but I never noticed as I was rushing. As I was on the phone with the subscription department I was told that all paper deliveries were going to be late that day due to a problem with the presses. As I was hearing this news, I was also hearing from my partner that the paper I bought wasn't the right paper. Apparently the store had stocked up on another local paper due to the lack of deliveries.
What I am ultimately getting around to saying is that while I had made what I thought was a very accurate assumption for the reason we didn't get a paper delivered, it turned out to be totally incorrect. It got me, later in the day, to reflect on how often we make assumptions and judgements and could be totally off-base, even when we feel pretty darn sure we are right.
That got me to recalling how earlier in the week I had gone to the local Social Security office to begin processing for Medicare for next March's 65th birthday. While giving the person all of my information, including that of my long-divorced ex-husband, I told her that he was dead, as I had read his obit a few years ago. She tells me, looking at the computer, that he isn't dead. Well, I had felt pretty certain that the obit I read was his, but concluded our business. Upon further investigation at home on Facebook and Google I discovered that he is alive, and a person with his exact name, not a common name, and including the Jr. at the end of it, had died near where we had lived. Again all the signs had pointed to that being my ex, but when I got to to part of the online info that said he died at the age of 88, I know I had been wrong. Again, wrong assumptions, but the clues seemed clear to me. Makes me wonder about trials and eye witnesses and so forth.
I will try to be a bit more careful, if I can, in my assumptions and judgements. "Only a buddha, together with a buddha" can determine the true sequence of cause and effect in our lives.
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