listening to life

Today after a little deliberation I decided that I would go check what the ocean was like. The plan was to go for a quick surf or at least a swim. It took some convincing to pacify the part of my mind that was desperate to avoid the ocean and get a head start on work. 

When I got to the ocean the waves looked incredibly fun. I took a short video to send to my friend who wanted a report and sent him a few texts that did nothing to hide my enthusiasm. I was amped!!! 

I ran to the car to put my wetsuit on. Right before I grabbed my surfboard from the back, a car left from a nice shady spot under a tree, I saw it and decided to take it. I slammed the boot, with my board in the car and ran around to the driver door to jump in….Locked! No No No NOOOOO!

There I stood, in my wetsuit, with my board, clothes and keys locked in the car. I suddenly realised my phone was in my hand and quickly pressed the button in hopes of a solution, a lifeline, but what I saw was the folioing sequence; 1% battery, spinning wheel of death, black screen, reflection of disappointment.

Late the previous night I had watched a short video by Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment. Where he talked about his experience of becoming aware of the internal dialogue of the mind and how if unnoticed and left to its own, will make all the decisions in our life. He talked about an experiment he did with this voice in his head “I stopped listening to that, and started listening to life instead. What if the events unfolding in front of me were more important than whether I liked them or not.”

I was standing in my wetsuit at the beach, with no transport and no phone. My mind was a hive of noise, MY BOARD, MY WORK, MY CAR… BAHHHHH! 

Rather than being absorbed by my minds struggle with an expectation that was no longer attainable, I decided to tune into the information life was feeding me right then.

I laughed, ran to the ocean and had a great long body surf. Hours I spent floating around catching waves with nothing other than my own physical body driving me upon wave after wave. Body surfing is a love of mine but I often will favour taking a board, so this was great having that option removed. I also would usually finish when I got tired, but seeing as I had nothing else to do I pushed myself further and got a great physical workout. My friend eventually came and after an epic surf together, he gave me a lift back to my house to grab my spare key. When I got my phone back on I had a message saying my meeting had been pushed back an hour, so I was not late and even had time to eat lunch. 

Now on one hand I was even further behind schedule with work, but on the other I was feeling topped up and inspired. When I did get into my work, everything I did was in flow and what could have been just another work day became a great day! A day well lived!