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The curse (or blessing) of the green car

By Elsabe Smit

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 12Feb2009
Word count: 1302
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Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you knew you were doing a stupid thing, but somehow you could not stop yourself? Then you would also know how it feels to be unable to kick your own backside, and you are too embarrassed to tell anyone else to do it. I will tell you about this because I know I can trust you not to tell anyone else.

My nightmare started with a green car. If I was the Queen, I would have outlawed green cars.

Here is what happened. I owned a green car. I did not use it that often, because it was my second car - I initially bought the car to do someone else a favour, and that is never a good reason to spend money, because such a good deed always comes back to bite you.

When the road tax disc for the car expired, I renewed it on-line - one of the blessings of living in England is easy access to such on-line services. The tax disk arrived in the mail, and I put it in the kitchen with other stuff that I was going to deal with eventually - no rush, because I was not using the car every day.

Then one day I came home, only to find that some road workers had broken into the car during the day and moved it while I was away. Their excuse? They had to dig up the road - no forward notice of any kind to the neighbourhood - and the car was in the way. The tax disc was not up to date, and although they had the facilities to check, they preferred to assume that the car was abandoned. And - hear this - they did not damage the car when they broke into it, so what exactly was I complaining about?

Of course this kind of behaviour is just not on for me, and I went to the police but nothing came of it. The reason was that in England the law says something like if I was at home I would have moved the car for the road workers to do their job, and therefore their breaking into the car without my knowledge or permission was not illegal. Yes, I also thought that England was a civilised country where crime is not tolerated.

Of course the next day I used the car to go to work, so that the road workers would not have another opportunity to practice their part-time profession. I was not happy with this, because somehow I knew the car and everything that was associated with it was bad news.

On the way home, I ran out of petrol - for the first time ever in my life. The bloody car did it again! Of course I could not leave the car on a yellow line - trust a green car to die on a yellow line - and had to pay an arm and a leg to have the car towed home. I left the stupid car at home to suffer, and went away for a weekend with friends.

When I returned, she was there, waiting for me with an empty tank. Somehow I know that car was female. I went to the petrol station, bought a petrol can and filled it with petrol - after first showering myself in petrol because I did not realise the force of the petrol stream into the empty can would result in a spray of petrol over my hair, face and clothes. Bloody green car!

I went home, filled the tank with petrol and started the car - and quickly found a buyer for the car. Our parting was not amicable.

OK, now you can stop laughing. And you can criticise me for getting emotional about such a petty thing, once you can convince me that nothing like this has ever happened to you.

Why was I traumatised by a green car? Because I focused on the effects rather than on the cause. And I am supposed at this point in my journey to know better. Just shows you that we never stop learning.

Of course, if I had put the updated tax disk in the car, the road workers might have listened to my neighbours who told them that I owned the car. This might not have deterred them, but the tax disk was still my responsibility and I did not do it.

It was also my responsibility to ensure that there was enough petrol in the car before using it. And the worst part is that instead of having the car towed in, I could have walked the short distance to the petrol station and saved myself about 90% of the money I spent on getting the car towed back home. At the time I was so fed up that I did not think straight.

Of course when we accept that we create all our experiences, no matter how good or bad they are, our entire view of the world changes. Instead of fighting for our place in the world, we create as much or as little space for ourselves in the world as we want, and it becomes so much easier to get what we want.

My story relates to a car, but we tend to do exactly the same with just about everything else in our lives. Think of the people that treat you badly in a relationship or a friendship - but you allow them to treat you in that manner because unconsciously you have to learn much from them about yourself. This is the case with relationships everywhere - even casual incidents with people that you do not know. And the opposite is true as well - people treat you well when unconsciously you expect them to treat you well.

I once was waiting for a train when a young man approached me. The first thing I noticed was the tattoo that covered his entire head, and things that to me looked like ball-bearings that were implanted under his scalp, not to mention all the other pieces of metal sticking out of him that must have caused him tremendous discomfort.

My first instinct was to turn away and look for the safety of other people. But then I saw his eyes and realised he was a funny-looking kid who was stressed and lost. He asked me about a particular train, and I immediately realised that he was on the wrong platform, because the names of two stations were very similar. I told him where to go to catch his train, and he was so grateful when he ran up the stairs.

The only thing he "did to me" was remind me that looks may be deceiving and that we choose how we respond to people. When we are at cause (we recognise our own creation), we get a perspective that is completely different from when we are at effect (we assume we are victims of circumstances).

Another area of our lives that we plan very well and then blame elsewhere is our physical health. Think about dis-ease. Every single dis-ease that we experience is our own creation. Dis-ease is an expression of the part of our soul or subconscious that we need or want to focus on in our quest to learn everything about ourselves that we planned for this existence.

In the meantime, I have realised that green cars, and especially troublesome green cars, are in fact a blessing. That particular car had to teach me the difference between taking responsibility for my creation and blaming everyone in sight for what I created. Why am I talking about the car as if it is a person? Simply because the car is energy, just like I am energy. Who says it is not alive? Just joking - or am I?

Elsabe Smit is the author of the soul-touching collection of short stories, A Tapestry of Life and of the blog www.mypurpleblog.com, Spiritual interpretations of everyday life.

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