Today the fire alarm went off in my apartment complex; fortunately not in my exact building or I would have had to leave (it’s earsplitting!) but close enough. The ironic juxtaposition here was pretty awesome :) since I was in the middle of meditating; not only that but the teacher was specifically teaching a lesson on motivation. Many people (I’m not one of them anymore) when they are new to meditation are afraid that meditating will make them “lose their edge” and get complacent, and so he was addressing that, and he mentioned that worrying about things is OK as long as its productive and we’re aware of and in control of our worry. It’s when we run away with our worry that it’s not helping us. And it occurred to me that although this earsplitting fire alarm was going off, nobody seemed all that worried, and precisely nobody was acting as if there was an actual fire. I hear car alarms on my street all the time, and the one thing nobody ever does is act as if somebody is stealing a car. So my takeaway: worry can be like that. Just a alarm blaring in the background that the rest of our life isn’t paying any attention to. And modern life is like that for a lot of people these days; just noise, accomplishing nothing and signifying nothing! So yeah: worrying without purpose is as annoying and pointless as a car alarm.
