Teething trouble
A friend of mine recently lost four front teeth. Two came out, two broke in half. She ran up a rock by a stream and slipped, landing on her face. I heard about it from her partner and when I saw her next, rather than dwell on how gruesome it had been she had an interesting response.
“It took me a little while to get beyond the vanity thing, and then I started to wonder what it meant for me as the mother of a toddler, that I could be so impetuous. I remember, even as I was running, thinking that maybe I should have checked to see if the rock was wet first. I am a little wiser as a result perhaps, so I got something from it after all, and indirectly, my daughter will too, though she will never know.”
I thought this was a wonderful example of seeing ‘everything as an offer’. She was able to laugh at her own vanity (and she is a very beautiful woman) and get beyond it to something more interesting and useful. I am sure she would rather not have broken four teeth but given that she did, she found a way to use the fact. And it is noteworthy that in this case, the result of the practise is to make someone more prudent, not more spontaneous.