A New Appreciation For The Suit

According to my friend Eckart Tolle, author of "The New Earth", in order to find your true purpose in life is to defeat the ego (the voice in your head that is negative and if given the chance will mask the true self). The best defense against the ego is by living in the now because the ego likes to hate on everything and complain away the day.

In attempts of erasing my ego, I have been trying to be more conscious and live in the moment. But of course, my version of living in the now is by observing others around me and mentally taking notes for later stories.

Walking to work today was a great example of life in motion. There was the random act of kindness in which a man noticed that the person next to him on the bus dropped his cell phone, so chased him down to give it back. Later, there was a boy in a wheel chair that I felt bad for after his dad pushed him into a curb, causing him to uncomfortably stop short. Around 53rd and Fifth, there was a huge, I'm talking probably about 10 feet tall inflatable rat, apparently announcing that asbestos kills! (I don't really understand how the two connect). And of course we have the usual tourists that were walking slow and whom i usually give evil glares to, instead tried to reason with my head, "they are only walking slow because they are German tourists, overwhelmed by the city and have no idea where they are going"

My ego replied with, " Well unfortunately, you know where you are going and where you should be. And that would be WORK. SOME OF US HAVE TO GO TO WORK!! Out of my WAY!"

Finally, there was the sea of suits, who walk with purpose clutching a coffee in one hand and the other filled with a pile of Walt Street Journals and NY Times. If you've ever read anything else of mine, you know that I am usually not interested in Suits and don't care to chat with them because they are usually pretty typical and like to talk about money, compare careers, and so on. But then I realized maybe it's my ego's doings as to why I don't care for the Suits and need to let go of the animosity in order find a common ground.

So today while I took the walk of inner peace, I was standing next to a Suit at a corner waiting to cross the street and he was snapping his fingers and stamping his feet. Not just a little, "oh this is a good song" kinda tap. I'm talking a, "I LOVE THIS SONG and I LOVE LIFE" medley. So he bopped across the street and then became a member of the air orchestra and started to air drum, guitar, flute, xylophone, and so on (fine, minus the last 2). And seriously, just by this wonderful act of musical love, changed my outlook of the Suit. Perhaps my friend there was a musician, who always dreamed of being in a band, got married had a baby or two and sacrified it all to take care of his family. Maybe he's in a band, and they played all weekend long. Who knows. But it definitely shows that I am way too hasty to judge and am missing out on a lot of undercover characters.