This is a funny story that has different layers and taught me a lesson I am still thinking about now.
I was driving on the 26th December to go teach a yoga workshop. So I now live in Ticino, close to Lake Locarno, and had to drive to Lugano. The drive took me around 40 minutes. I am lucky to have a super modern car that has all this features like Bluetooth for phone calls and playing music. And I really enjoy the random function for playing music.
In my iPhone there is wide range of music, yoga music, kirtan, rock, punk, reggae and pop. I really enjoy listening to what my car is mixing up for me, it’s mostly funny and makes me laugh out loud. That morning, I realized only around the third song that the title always included the word love, loved or lovely. So at the end of every song I was keeping a more and more curious eye on the screen: just to see that the next song had something “lovish” in the title, again! And the thing kept on doing that until I reached my destination. From “I will always love you” by The Cure (ha!) to “Love on the beat” by Serge Gainsbourg (horrible!) and “Lover man” by Billy Holiday (great!).
I couldn’t believe it, and still don’t know if there is some sort of logarithm in the system or if the 10 or so songs had casually this common denominator. But I find it very interesting: my car did choose “love”. It can choose among thousands of songs, and chooses love. And we can do that too. In so many situations we have the opportunity to choose. Sometimes, instead of reacting quickly without a brief moment of introspection, we can really change things for ourselves and others by choosing something different.
To come back to driving, cars and traffic. I am a rather aggressive driver, I get upset quite easily (it’s getting better) in traffic, it’s probably my Italian genes. I decided to start from here: taking example from my small car, choosing to be more compassionate about other drivers! Hopefully an easy start!
Comments