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.   

On a rainy Halloween day in Portland Oregon, a large truck, that started it’s journey in Mattoon Illinois, unloads four pallets of books.