Day 32

Occurred March 10, 2009

Today's favor was about starting over. I received a request asking me to help a friend of a friend to start her life again now that she had left her husband and found herself alone in the vast city known as Los Angeles. How ironic to have the final favor request be about starting again...a reset of sorts. Perhaps it is a sign that the spirit of 32 Favors will continue even after today. Only time will tell how the story will unfold.

Immediately I recognized the parity between this favor request and my own life. I came to LA almost a year ago with similar aspirations: to start over fresh. The woman and I agreed to meet at a cafe near the beach and to spend the day brainstorming ideas for her regarding possible next steps. She began our meeting with a summary of her life's events over the past year. Her husband betrayed her trust on several levels, she tried to look past the indiscretions since she loved him deeply, she ultimately decided she could not trust him and needed to leave the marriage. I asked her how I could be most helpful to her. She responded, "I'm not 100% certain, maybe we could just lay-out all my options and then you can help me evaluate them. I just want to forget the past and focus on my future."

I noticed she omitted one crucial aspect of time: the present. "Perhaps we could also look at the present and where you are at currently on both psychological and physical levels. I'm no psychologist, but based on my personal experience, it was helpful to take an inventory of my current experiences, " I remarked. "Furthermore, I found it useful to not deny my past but also to not grant it power to define my present," I concluded.

The woman admitted that up until this moment she had not thought of anything other than the desire to hit the "reset" button on life and to erase everything from her past. I empathized and yet also countered with, "OK that makes sense on one level, but without your past you would not be who you are at this instant."

The remainder of our meeting was spent defining her present experience and then use that awareness to help her craft possible next steps. It turned out that in order to start again or to reset her life she needed to first look at her past without judgment and to be open to a future void of an investment in the eventual outcome. The key to accomplishing all of this was staying grounded in the present and being willing to take the first step away from being limited by the seeming constraints of her own perceptions. She left our meeting full of hope which is essential in order to look at someone or something differently. The journey towards understanding her present is now complete and at the same time, it has just begun.