Streetlamp

One of my friend Jamal Rahman's favorite stories tells about a woman whose neighbor found her searching for something under a streetlamp one night.

"What did you lose?" he asked as he joined the search.

"My keys," she said.

When he asked where she last saw them, she replied, "In my house."

"Why aren't you looking for them in there?" the neighbor asked, confused.

"Because it's dark in my house, and the light is better out here."

It was inconvenient to search for the keys in a dark house, even though she knew they were likely there, so the woman looked for them in a more "convenient" place.

How often do we choose what we think is the easier path so we may avoid the true work, which often is fraught with challenge, difficulty, and pain? How many times have we bought the latest diet book, thinking that somehow by just having it, paging through it, that the pounds would just start melting off? I'm embarrassed to say how many unused exercise videos I've collected over the years. Honestly, the main exercise I've gotten since buying them has mostly been from taking them on and off the shelf to dust under them.

Or how about when we blame people who hold political views different from us? I can't count the times I've watched someone on TV whose social and political beliefs are so diametrically opposed to mine that I just want to throw the nearest large, heavy object at the screen.

"Those stupid people are the reason this country is going to hell in a handbag," I'll mutter to myself (or yell at the TV).

Pick up a newspaper and you'll find plenty of examples where we individually and collectively point at the other guy (nation, social or ethnic group, religion, political party, etc.) as the source of our ills. Lines have been drawn, you're either with us or against us, it's all or nothing, black and white, no gradations.

This approach is so convenient. And so counterproductive.

Because the truth is, it's not about the other guy (nation, social or ethnic group, religion, political party, etc.). It's about you; it's about me. It's about realizing that the only thing we have the power to change is our own mind. How we see things, how we think about things, how we react to things. This is the real work—the inner work of transformation. Inconvenient? Absolutely.