A few months back, I was sitting in a lawn chair chatting with some friends, who I’d known from back my college days, in their backyard. We’d just finished a walk together, through neighborhoods and downtown. Back at my friends’ house, we decided to relax, rehydrate and continue our conversation. Eventually my watch kept getting the best of my attention and I excused myself to leave as work was beckoning. One of my friends saw me out. We walked towards my car. Utterly commonplace, downright predictable and nice.
SUDDENLY, someone approached us out of nowhere. I quickly came to realize that it was another friend of mine, whom I’d known since childhood. This was interesting and unexpected.
She walks up to us and says, “I heard you Jason.”
At first her words didn’t make any sense. What does she mean she HEARD me?
Then she points to the house next door and says, “We live next door and I happened to be out in the backyard and heard you talking from the other side of the fence.”
What ARE the chances?
Had we gotten back from our walk at a different time, this meeting probably wouldn’t have synced up. Had we decided to walk a different day of the week, I may have been in my friend’s backyard while my other friend was away, or even inside.
AND what are the chances of friends that I know from totally different parts of my life living next door to one another, being neighbors that know each other in their own way without any inkling that I’m a common thread they share?
Was this synchronicity any more less probable than winning millions in the lottery? Maybe I should have skipped work and gone directly to the gas station to buy tickets to find out.
As I think about this now, I realize that while there is much in life that we can plan for and take action towards, there’s also much that is simply beyond our control. I feel like those words often conjure a certain sense of dread of the unknown.
But maybe the unknown is just as likely to be an extraordinary positive as it is to be anything else.
Maybe the best we can hope to do in life is to show up in the most imperfect best way we can on any given day and allow the part of life that is beyond our control to show up in its own imperfect best way.
AND, I suppose that sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have an unmistakable speech impediment, so that friends are certain to recognize your voice a backyard away.
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JASON FREEMAN is a Professional Speaker and the proud owner of a Speech Impediment. He is also the author of “Awkwardly Awesome: Embracing My Imperfect Best” and a Perseverance Coach.
He excites and encourages his audience to break through the barriers of their own limitations using a method he created, called “Doing your Imperfect Best ™”.
His Imperfect TEDx Talk can be viewed here.
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