The Universe Meeting My Needs

Today, my current day job went a little long than I'd planned, and I found myself relatively late at night trying to find a stranger to make introductions to complete one aspect of the daily practice.  I'd gotten a reasonably good photo of Mobile, and I'd finished my calisthenics but I needed a stranger to complete the day.

Birthplace of Mardi Gras - Mobile, AL

When I find myself in this sort of situation, I usually take a little short cut and try to find some sort of retail establishment to make a trivial purchase and use that interaction to meet the store clerk or manager or on odd occasions a customer. Following that pattern, I headed out to a convenience store about a mile down the road.

As I was walking down the path, I began to get a little restless about the approach. It fit within the rules, but the financial transaction to smooth the road to the introduction always struck me as the lazy way out. Just as I was beginning to come to terms with my decision, I looked up and a man on a bike had pulled up. I walked alongside, and he asked me if I knew if the Gator Alley catwalk closed after dusk.  I introduced myself, and he returned the favor when he told me his name was Rick.

We talked a little, and he shared that he was camping just up the road and was likely heading out in the next couple of days after the presidential election was over. He was a good guy.

The real point in all this was that just at the moment I began to think I was cheating myself by contriving a way to meet someone new, the universe delivered.  Two months ago, I would have avoided Rick.  After a little over a month of practicing introductions, I welcomed the exchange with Rick.

I'm probably overthinking things, but there's a lesson in this experience somewhere. I'd walked almost every step to that convenience store I'd targeted a little over fifteen minutes before. Rick (and the Universe) didn't save me a whole lot of steps, but by doing the work he did save me a little money.

It's impossible to know what's around the next corner, but if you keep walking there's a good chance you'll find out. There's also a better than average chance that the unexpected result will be better (and certainly different) than what you'd imagined.