Whenever something like that happens, no matter who it is about, I try to reflect on it and see what I might learn to become a better and hopefully wiser person.
After we hung up, my mind went into it's "what can you learn" mode. My thoughts danced around willy nilly as I went to the basement. I took the clothes out of the dryer and put a new load in the washer. I turned the washer and dryer on and headed upstairs with the warm, freshly washed bedding, knowing that I would be alone with my thoughts until the dryer buzzer went off again.
I got to the bedroom and had to gently relocate two cats to another resting place so I could remake the bed with the clean linen. I had the bed stripped down to the mattress and had to work pretty hard, as I was alone, to refit the bulky mattress cover. As I was tossing the blankets in preparation of remaking the bed, thoughts of what I might have learned from my conversation with my friend started bubbling.
As I went back and forth from side to side of the bed I began thinking about what I used to be like and what I was doing now. I was an athlete, a runner, a bodybuilder, part of a crewing team, played football... you get the idea. What came to mind was that I was a warrior, I was a dragon slayer and have been reduced to (sticking with medieval terminology) a chamber maid. Not that those are bad things or lowly things, just different from slaying dragons and a lot less exciting. Hey, I am a guy and us guys want to slay dragons and to go from (in my own mind) a slayer of dragons using my cunning and might to do great deeds to bed making was not what I would have thought would have ever happened. Of course, that was many years ago, but again, I am a man and we will always have a bit of the old dragon slayer in us no matter how old we get.
I wondered what good I am actually doing. I wondered what price I had paid to leave the excitement of my former life to do chores and be around if someone happened to call.
I lost a life of stuff. Everybody likes stuff and I had a bunch. I left a pretty nice house and flying to big cities to work trade shows. I left carrying my laptop and talking big business on my cell phone. I left being known in an industry and dreams of vacation homes. What could I learn from all that? There seemed to be a pretty easy answer. I must have lost my mind. My heart is telling me I did the right thing but my mind and stuff is telling me- "about time you see the light!"
So, with my mind painting pictures of me as a dragon slayer, I strolled to the computer to check a phone number. Oh, I have a message in my inbox, how fun. I clicked and opened the email to find a message from a great guy for whom I facilitated his wedding several weeks ago. He wrote to again thank my wife and me for the part we played in their wedding day. He invited us to dinner to catch up and hear all the stories of their honeymoon. I am so excited to spend time with them and catch up. They are two of the greatest people we have recently met.
I read his email a second time. What I learned from the conversation with my friend, doing the laundry, making the bed, and reading that email is this, being a dragon slayer might be over-rated. What really matters it being in a place where you can hopefully touch another person's life and have another person touch yours. It really doesn't get much better than that.
There always seems to be a battle going on between our heads and our hearts. Our heads want one thing while our hearts so often want something totally different. It is a battle, it is a struggle and with all the marketing, flashing lights, foot tapping music and so on, it is hard to hear our hearts. It takes effort to not become distracted from what really matters. It really takes determination to learn to distinguish who is talking. Often, following our hearts has a price and often it is a really big price but what you get for the money is way more valuable.
After thinking through all that, I hope my heart keeps on winning. What I have received by making heart choices has made me a richer man.