Stitching my ego

I could see my toe from the small hole in my shoe, which was getting bigger and bigger day by day. I kept putting off the repair, and the day came when I had no choice but to do something about it. 

We asked a few people if there was a cobbler in the village, but there wasn’t. I thought of mending it myself, but I wasn’t sure I could manage. The person I asked looked at my shoe and said, "Let me try." I asked him if he had done it before, and he said not really. I row a boat, but this would be an opportunity for me to serve you. 

I was observing him, and the very first thing that struck me was the love with which he was doing it. A part of me felt embarrassed because I knew how dirty my shoe was, and he was holding it as if it were a bunch of flowers. While he was doing it, I felt some discomfort. The fear I had all this time of not knowing, versus the effort this man was putting into something he hadn’t done before in an effortless way. It’s amazing how in a village everyone knows everything. And how my “education” or my urban upbringing was inhibiting in doing something new. . 

As I kept observing my mind, I arrived at a thought that shook me. My mind made a discrimination and said that this is not my job. It is a lower job. I realized the root of this thought was the social conditioning I had grown up with. I couldn’t believe my own thoughts, and a part of me felt ashamed. The resistance to not doing it myself was not only the fear of taking on a new job, but also deep conditioning. I wanted to get up and give him water to wash his hands, but I couldn’t go beyond a courteous thank-you. 

I just kept sitting with these discomforting thoughts that evening. The neatness of each stitch reminded me of the lost opportunity to share my gratitude. After that day, every time I look at that patch on my shoe, it reminds me to practice humility.