Broken

20May09

So I dropped my iPhone straight on the glass on the concrete floor of my garage. Yeah, it sucks but thankfully, it’s still fully functional. With every mishap, I think about connections to other aspects of life and lessons learned. Here are some:

• Looking at my iPhone interface through broken glass reminds me of the lenses through which I look at situations. Sometimes, situations and circumstances are not as bad as they seem but because of my brokenness, caused by past experiences, I see those situations through a broken perspective. And just like I can’t be fully at peace with using my iPhone now, that broken perspective prevents me from being fully at peace with the situation.
• I could get used to it. It’s not ideal but at least it’s still functional. If I use it long enough, I might not even notice the broken glass anymore because I’ll grow accustomed to it. Sometimes there are things about me that I am tempted to just overlook because it’s costly to fix (way more than it is to fix an iPhone). So I just settle and continue living. Pretty soon, I get used to it and don’t even notice those flaws. But other people do, just like they would the cracked glass if they saw my iPhone for the first time. I’d rather not settle. I want to be the best version of myself. So I’d rather proactively fix any issues with my character. The price will be worth it.
• Even with the broken screen, I was still able to score almost 2 million on Bejewled 2! iPhone’s can be fixed but there are some things in life that simply can’t. A disease or or a handicap, for example. But humans are capable of doing extraordinary things, even when not functioning at optimal capacity.
• When I first got my iPhone, I appreciated it for it’s beautiful simplicity. It was new. It was exciting. After a while, it became a normal part of my daily routine and although I used it a lot, I hardly took a step back to appreciate it the way I did before. Only now that it’s broken, do I miss when it wasn’t. Only now that I long to restore it’s original beauty, does it’s original beauty receive any mind share. Reminds me of relationships. How many people do I take for granted? Do I have to wait for relationships to break before I come to appreciate them?

What other lessons are there?

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