Shrug Your Shoulders: Newspaper Fall (with Added Commentary)

3 Nephi 19:30 - "And when Jesus had spoken these words he came again unto his disciples; and behold they did pray steadfastly, without ceasing, unto him; and he did smile upon them again ..."

So mi amigo and I were out roving like we RAs do on a Sunday night, walking through every hallway and peering into every nook and cranny, talking all about life, the universe, and everything, when we stepped into a particular hallway.

At some point since the last time we'd visited this hallway, a group of intrepid individuals had brought in several large stacks of newspapers, crumpled the lot up, and then strewn them all over the hallway. I'm talking about a snow of papers, from one end to the other, creating an ankle-deep obstacle you either had to wade or high-step through.

Of course, my first reactions, internalized and considered, were pretty lame, in my opinion. Should we clean this up? I wondered. Should we fill out a report? Should we do some investigative work to figure out what happened?

It was the residents, and even their RA when he revealed he'd been in the hallway the entire time by bursting out of a pile of papers like they were a pile of leaves, that taught me the important lesson for the day. They'd been pranked. There was a huge mess. There were a lot of unanswered questions, including, Who should we seek revenge on? But not a one of them cared. Not a one saw the prank as a problem, or even bothered considering the next proper step to take. Rather, they took the spontaneity at face value and proceeded to enjoy themselves, playing and throwing and kicking and laughing as part of the grand experience they might not ever have again.

I think it relates to that old saying, "When life give you lemons, make lemonade." I think, sometimes, life throws people like me an orange, and we mistake it for a lemon. I was ready to see the newspapers as a lemon, a mess someone would have to later clean up, but everyone around me was just grateful for the orange.

So, I, too, along with my roving amigo, played in the 'snow' for a bit before we continued on our way. I took with me the decision to enjoy every spontaneous moment that arises, no matter what I may have to do later to rectify whatever problems the spontaneity may have caused. And with that, I'm convinced that life will be just a little more enjoyable.

I wrote a commentary about this post on November 19, 2015. Click here to read!