A Sense of Anticipation?

Years ago, I saw a very funny comic strip in the New York Post that I still laugh about from time to time: The first scene shows 2 elderly friends, in their final stages of life, sitting on a park bench. One leans over to the other and says, “You know, I want more of a sense of anticipation in my life.” And the other quips, “Well, start leaving your front door open at night before you go to bed.”

This strip remined me of my desire to have the burglar bars on the front window of my otherwise beautiful apartment removed. I’ve wanted to have them removed ever since moving in and, recently, I asked the landlord to remove them. He dryly told me that getting the bars down was my problem and not his... you know how landlords can be. I lovingly replied that it may be viewed by the officials in the City of West Hollywood as a fire hazard, to which he retorted, “Well, you can always jump out the back window.” “Where would I land, sir? I’m on the top floor of the building?” “Oh, it’s only 3 flights up. You wouldn’t be hurt…”

He clearly wasn’t concerned about my safety. All he could think about was the $200 in labor that it would cost him to have the bars removed. I guess I can understand that. Although, I have to admit, the lower vibration part of me halfway wished that my apartment would catch fire, prompting me to nosedive from my back window, break my neck, and die… all just to see the look on his face when the authorities come to his house to arrest his 70-year old frame for not spending the measly $200 bucks (if that) it would’ve cost him take the burglar bars down. But I got out of that space quickly, took in a deep breath, thanked him for considering it, and got off the phone.

A couple of months went by. During that time, I asked friends if the burglar bars bothered them. And surprisingly, no one had even noticed them. It’s not that they were overtly obtrusive, or even ugly. In fact, they blended in quite well with my vertical blinds.

But it was the symbol of having a cage on my window that I could no longer live with. And I realized that the metaphorical value of having them down was infinitely greater than the $200 it would cost to have them removed. So I placed an ad on Craiglist, offering $100 bucks (hey, you never know) for a professional to help me take them down. This nice guy named Scott replied right away, and the next day he came over and together, we liberated my view to the world below. I felt like Andy Dufresne at the end of Shawshank Redemption, bursting out of that pipeline full of sewage, throwing his hands up, bathing in the raindrops of freedom.

I know that sounds dramatic, but to put it into context, I’ve been liberating my fears, one by one, little by little, for years now. I haven’t locked my doors in years, nor do I lock my car, or my locker in the gym when I teach my classes. I think locks and bars provide a false sense of security and put a message out to the universe that one is preparing to be violated. And in response, the Universe would answer that message by placing me in a situation where I would be violated, rationing, “hey, you’ve done all this wonderful preparation, so let’s put it to the test… see what you’ve got.” The Universe can have a wonderfully ironic sense of humor.

Besides, ever hear of a house that was “broken into” where the doors were unlocked?

To further illustrate my point, think about it: Everybody knows or has been around dramatic people, right? And do you ever notice that dramatic things always seem to happen to dramatic people? Likewise, funny things always happen to funny people, and suspicious things that would rarely happen to anyone else, ALWAYS happen to paranoid people.

So I figure, why not be free and liberated from fear, and in return, see if the Universe responds by placing me in various freedom-acquiring situations. Instead of preparing to be violated I’ll prepare to experience an unparalleled sense of freedom… from lack, limitation, fear, you name it!

It’s an experiment, so let’s see what happens.