I’m on the internet a lot. I don’t have just one simple password for everything (like 1234 or even “susie"). I have about 20 different passwords that I use, and even if I give myself a clue, it still doesn’t help (like “the usual” - WHICH usual?). So yesterday when I was trying to log on to Yahoo I typed in my user name - no big deal. I’ve been using it for years. But the password. Ah - I don’t think I’ve changed it THAT recently ago, so I think I still remember it. I type it in - red letters tell me something’s incorrect. Crap - maybe it’s that variation of that one. I try it again. And again. Now I need to change it because I obviously can’t remember it. I have to retype those slanted, fuzzy words that sometimes you can’t even READ. Type type type. Not right. More slanted, fuzzy words. Type type type. Not right. Okay, maybe that ‘n’ was actually an ‘h.’ Type type type. Still wrong. I continue to retype slanty, fuzzy words probably 50 times (okay, sometimes I’m not the brightest bulb in the crayon box) until I actually READ what the red colored text is telling me. “Your username is wrong.” I look - I had typed in “.....@ahoo.com.” No ‘y.’ I type in my correct e-mail address and the passwords I had originally thought was correct, and voila - there’s my Yahoo.
This got me to thinking. How often do we think we know what the problem is - we correct it, but something’s still wrong. So we try it again and again. If something doesn’t work, maybe the ‘problem’ lies elsewhere. Maybe if I’m mad at my cat for trying to eat the crab I shouldn’t spank his furry little butt. Maybe I should move the crab cage to a safe location. Maybe it’s not the cat.
I think of other ‘problems’ I’ve been trying to solve. Steve putting the toilet paper roll on backwards, Bill not putting his homework immediately back into his backpack, me not being able to think before I speak, and I wonder if I should be trying it differently. I don’t know yet. This concept is still new to me. NOT the concept of trying something different, but the concept of KNOWING something is right, but then finding out it was wrong when you even GOT the message it was wrong - you just assumed the message was talking about something else. You couldn’t be doing this simple thing WRONG, could you? Preconceived notions, automatic habits, patterns - everything automatic so you can go even faster through your days, not stopping to have an original thought. No time!
Is it possible to go back to the beginning, back to your username, and make sure THAT’S correct? What does that even mean? I’m not sure yet, but I think there’s some energy around it, so I’ll follow that trail for a while and see where it leads. And as always, I’ll report back what I find.