I have a brand new Macbook Pro, I had the older model that I bought just a few weeks before they released the new model. It was a great machine, great specs, great performance. But as the new model came out I got really sad. My machine was still a great machine but not as great as the new one. I called the store and they agreed to replace it and just as a bonus we where going to get the great deal with a free IPod Nano as well.
As this unfolds it turns out it took them two weeks for the macbooks to arrive at the store. And so we are no longer eligeble for the IPod deal. I go to the store disappointed and demand my IPod. The poor fellow in the store try to explain to me that it isn’t that he doesn’t want to give me an IPod, but he can not. I get flustered and in my mind I think I have a right to have a free IPod, after all didn’t everyone else who paid ridiculous amount of money for a mac get one. The Apple representative kindly reminds me that we are allready getting a £400 discount because we are students. I know he is right but I do not want to acknowledge it.
With the same attitude my youngest daughter has when she lies on the floor kicking and screaming to get ice cream just before dinner. I feel had. Why do I never get the good deal? Why do I never win the lottery (but you never play …. THAT’S NOT THE POINT)? I wan’t to scream out: IT’S NOT FAIR!
A quiet voice in my head reminds me of people starving in Africa and homeless people right outside this building of commercialism but the child within screams in outrage and then bargains. Yes, but I am getting a RED IPod that means at least some of the money is given to aids research.
At that outrageously ridiculous argument the card house in my mind crumbles and I let go. I am walking out of the store with a fantastic computer, the best one I have ever owned. Letting go of my silly notion of having my way frees me up to enjoy what I actually have. Letting go of what could have been, lets me just savor what is! Richard Foster calls this the freedom of submission and he states “In the discipline of Submission we are released to drop the matter, forget it. Frankly, most things in life are not nearly as important as we think they are.”1.
- Foster, Richard J. The Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: Harper, 1998) p. 111 [↩]
