Vento

Detach Yourself

October 16th, 2020

One time, while I was entering a restaurant, a man came rushing and entered the place before me.

Usually, when somebody is entering right after you, it's polite on your part to hold the door for this person. Almost everybody does it here in LA, but in this case, he didn't do it. He just got in.

At that moment, my egotistic mind was already creating a negative picture of him.

After that, while I was waiting in line for my order, that man was walking around as if he was desperate for something, and suddenly he decided to stand in front of me, blocking my view.

"What an idiot!" I thought.

I started to see him in a very negative way. Just because he didn't did something that I expected, just because he blocked my "precious" view, I started to label him without knowing his true situation.

Then, for some reason I asked myself "Hold on, do you know this man story? Do you know if he needs to go to the bathroom? Maybe he is just very desperate because he lost his job and needs to make money quickly. Wait... Weren't you in the same position just a few days ago?"

It made me think about how my ego can be dangerous in creating realities to rationalize unexpected events that happen before me. Just because of a door and my view being blocked I was cultivating harsh feelings. It turned out that the Idiot was nobody but me.

My ego was turning harmless breezes into hurricanes.

It's interesting that when our expectations are not achieved, we start to blame the surroundings, just as if we are the center of the universe. We always put ourselves on the good side of the table.

Remember about this while driving, while sharing the stage with other bands, or while reading comments about your music.

Remember this while being out there and living. 

These inoffensive wind blows happen all the time, some of them might be intentionally harmful, but others not. Whatever the case, it's up to you to decide on how to react.

And how to deal with them, then? It's simple. Detach.

See things from a neutral perspective.

Maybe that person honking behind you in the traffic is late for an important job interview.

Maybe that guitar player that messed up your cables on the stage wasn't stupid. He was just acting under pressure.

Maybe those mean comments on your music are from somebody who needs to throw some words out and that's the way he figured out to do it. Not a very good way, but why bother?

Do you remember Walter White? In his perspective, he was just helping his family. What about the real thing, the big picture? Yeah, not quite.

(If you haven't watched Breaking Bad, please do so and thank me later)

I am practicing this habit, and I am already noticing a huge decrease of negativity in my life.

Lets ignore that honk, just roll our messed up cables, and click "like" in that mean comment.