A Thermostat And A Book ...

Like many of us, I have been aware of a large and ever increasing gap between the inside and the outside. A gap between what I believe and what I see, between what I know to be true and what actually 'appears' in my daily life.

I have these vivid memories of myself as a child and there was ... NO GAP.

I am sure that the moment any gap began to grow I moved straight across it in the same natural flow as water flowing from the sky to the ground and then following it's path of least resistance. Be it a river that's been flowing steadily since maps have been made or a trickle along the side of the roadway that will be gone in an hour. The water always and continuously follows the path of least resistance in a never ending cycle that includes straight back up into the very same sky that released it not long before.

That was how I was as a child.

I was an unstoppable, freely flowing, never ending force of nature.

Now if that is true, it must still be true.

And if that is true then it must have been true all along because an- unstoppable never ending force ......

Human beings are incredibly complex events. Watching people often looks like watching water flow backwards, stand still, or shake violently, as if they are the exact opposite of unstoppable, the exact opposite of freely flowing, and victims of nature instead of one of it's never ending forces. My own life has been as such, like water flowing to the edge, and then prevented by an invisible wall from continuing on to where it belongs.

But this is not possible.

The laws of the universe can not be changed or broken by any human being. No matter how many times I try to jump to the moon, the laws of the universe return me to mother earth.

On the subject of laws of the universe, I do not offer any answers but I will offer a single experience. An experience that has been had by many, in thousands of different forms. An experience that will be understood by some as an example of nature being natural, and understood as coincidence by others. Both understandings are true, according to the very same law that prevents me landing on the moon with a single jump.

I moved into a new apartment a few years ago and I was forced to make a decision about the thermostat. The existing thermostat worked perfectly well but it was the kind that had many functions built into it. It came with an owners manual and a little 'cheat sheet' for navigating the menu tree through it's candy store of options. I know some people love this sort of thing but I like a thermostat that does one thing and one thing only. I like a thermostat that has a rotating dial with an arrow that points to the temperature I want, no more - no less. The decisio
I was forced to make upon seeing this evil abuse of technology sneering at me from the living room wall was to go with the flow, laugh it off and leave the thermostat be or sneak up on it like an unwanted housefly and tear it from the sheetrock with my soon to be bloody hands, risking electrical shock and a substantial repair bill.

I let the thermostat be.

Over the following months two seemingly unrelated events began happening. I began hearing more and more about the " law of attraction". In my car, on the rare occasio
I would turn on the radio, there was a story about someone's life being changed by it. Friends began mentioning it and a really dear friend even gave me a book on the subject. At the same time, the thermostat and I were getting to know each other and clearly, the thermostat was alive, and enjoyed taunting me. Every single time I would look at it to see the indoor temperature it would be busy displaying some useless information from it's vast database and I would be forced to wait. It wasn't long, five seconds at most, but it was unmistakable. I'm sort of a dense person when it comes to these things. I can be blissfully ignorant of for quite a while but this was so glaring even I couldn't help but notice that over the course of a year or so, EVERY SINGLE TIME I looked to the thermostat for an answer, the answer was "No, I am in control, and you will wait". After a few months I began testing my very first conspiracy theory and I was never surprised. Although I am sure it was calmly displaying the current room temperature for hours before my approach, it suddenly became very busy the moment my eyes turned it's way, not the government or or the gods, but the wall was out to get me.

I called them seemingly unrelated events, the recurrence of the phrase "law of attraction" and the taunting being dished out by the plastic box on the wall. Somewhere along the line I began to feel a link between the two but I was afraid to acknowledge it. I don't know the astrological tendencies of a person born under my sign and I really don't want to know. I gravitate toward simple, demonstrable guidelines and the hint of some connection between my thermostat and the half read book on my nightstand was very disturbing to me, so I did what my Irish heritage has taught me well, I ignored it. But I'm not the standard Irishman, I STOPPED drinking at the ripe old age of 16, just when my social programming said that it was time to trade in my empty beer cans for some clinky bottles of whiskey. So finally, I could ignore the connection no longer. I gave up and let the thermostat and the book flow together into the following sentence:
"The thermostat is displaying the temperature". At this point, I wasn't afraid any more. I had been whipped by a three inch electrical wall unit into submission. The last passage I remembered reading talked about how the universe aligns all of it's vast energy potential with my beliefs. I had been afraid of the thermostat because like everything else, it is somehow a powerful force of nature, aligning for better or worse, with MY BELIEFS.

That day, over a year after I considered shredding that arrogant beige appliance from my wall, I made a decision and declared it out loud.

"The thermostat is displaying the temperature".

I walked slowly and surely, like a man approaching a firing squad, with a flower to slide into each rifle, and read the temperature of the room, without being forced to wait.

That thermostat is now a trusted friend, telling me not only the temperature, but my degree of alignment between what I want, and what I am manifesting. Truly, a remarkable use of technology.