A WISE MAN

Last month, I decided to go to Washington, DC for only 4 days to take care of business. It was a short visit and a hectic one, but I was needing to go back home, to Madrid as soon as possible.
On my fourth day, while walking out of a meeting, I saw an old man, a man close to his 90's hanging on to my car with one hand and holding on to a walking cane with the other.
I had parked on a busy avenue and this gentleman was holding on to my car attempting to cross the street. He was hesitant, thinking, “should I go or should I not”.  I stood there for a minute watching him trying to cross the busy street while thinking what else I needed to accomplish that day.
Eventually I approached him and said, “Sir, can I help you cross the street?” He looked at me puzzled, while thinking if he should cross the busy avenue or not.  “Sir,” I said again, “this is my car and I need to leave…”
He looked at me with a grin while climbing back to the sidewalk and said, “I better stay, my wife is coming and she will be a lot more confused than I am if she doesn’t find me here.”
He managed to climb to the sidewalk and hold on to a pole to wait for his wife.
Wow, it just hit to me...
I was in a hurry, running around trying to put off fires, finishing with meetings and trying to accomplish everything in 4 days… then I meet this older man!
A gentleman with a great attitude. He was slow, a little confused, needed support but at the end he smiled and made smart choices based on his and his wife’s limitations.  He looked at me unperturbed and I imagined him saying, “what is the hurry? I have been around for almost a century and let me tell you something: We have one life and we are here to enjoy it. Our difficulties and issues are here today and will be there tomorrow and we will continue to always have issues… yes, we have to deal with them, but we don’t have to kill ourselves in solving them.”
At that moment, I had just learned a great lesson…
I was focused on finishing all my tasks with a small window to accomplish everything so I was stressed. I could not focus and my head felt like a pressure cooker ready to explode.
Although, my mind tends to perform well under a lot of pressure,  many times that stress weighs me down, makes me angry, sad, fed up and over time I feel burned out.
I know that It’s easier to focus on my tasks when I am feeling light and relaxed; when I place my fears on the side.
After seeing this older man’s attitude I felt as if somebody put a needle in my head and released all the pressure; I felt at ease…

Funny, I thought, that I had reached out to help, and at the end he is the one that really helped me; he is the one that brought me back to my own writings, "We have one life and we are here to enjoy it."
A great lesson from a wise man. Thank you!

“Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.” ― Hans Christian Andersen

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