Life can be so hilarious sometimes, although I am not always laughing.

Take the other day for example, my girlfriends and I were having a long overdue rendezvous and as our little ones shot nerf darts at each other Gretchen mentioned that she felt it was okay to try to save the world as long as we knew how to detach ourselves from our cause. I wondered what she was talking about? How can one be so attached to a cause and yet detached at the same time?

The next day I was at the drive through at the bank and I noticed that all of the people waiting in line  had their engines running, despite the signs plastered everywhere to turn off their engines to help reduce their carbon emissions.

My blood began to boil as I observed the happy, smiling people chatting on their cell phones, oblivious to their wrongdoing and I fought back the urge to make a public scene and end up on the front page of the paper with the headlines, “Mother in Flaming Mini Van Fights to Decrease Global Warming at the Drive Through”. Is that what Gretchen meant by detachment? To care, but to not impose your views aggressively onto others?

The day after that, after a week of suffering back spasms and missing the epic week of skiing of the year, I realized that my smiling philosophy was in bad need of an adjustment and so I went to The Win Health Institute in Basalt to take their weight lifting class, which offered a pay by donation policy.

As my luck would have it, I had gotten the schedule mixed up and so decided to work out in the gym. I am not much of a gym rat and usually take my pent up aggression outdoors or to the yoga room for release, where I can meditate in my own space and not be subjected to or subject myself to the energy of others. Inevitably I got into an altercation with a tall, thin, manicured women who clearly needed to be going nowhere fast on the treadmill next to me.

Being technically challenged, I was surprised to suddenly hear my friend talking to me through my earphones as I listened to my iPod on my iPhone.

I hung up three minutes later and thought that I overheard the woman say to her boyfriend, “I just love listening to other people’s conversations when they are on their cell phones.” Not able to hear very well with my dance music thumping in my ears, I mistakenly took her sarcasm for humor and said, “So was it good for you too?”  Her face became very red and she began to sputter, pointing to the enormous NO CELL PHONE signs that were…plastered everywhere.

She did not accept my apology and continued to whine and my  friends on the treadmill next to me mentioned that they thought this would be good blog fodder. Agreeing with them, I couldn’t help but deliver some sass and toy with her for just a bit, even though I was empathetic with her dislike for PDC’s, public displays of conversations.

As usual Karma kicked in later that day and my horrible spasms returned full force. When will I learn that my hot temper and sass feel good when in action but ALWAYS cost me, later.

And so I have learned a life lesson and am now very clear about Gretchen’s words of wisdom. You can try your best to teach people how to help make our world a better place but if you become so attached to your cause that you offend people, than you just may invoke the opposite reaction to your desired outcome.

PS – Please visit my good friend SuZen at her blog, Erasing the Bored, to get better informed about our food.