Disconnecting the ‘equipment’ that doesn’t serve you anymore.

Christmas Gift as Dharma Teaching

Internet setup as a metaphor for life.

Sometimes while you’re yelling at the problem, the solution is smiling at you from behind. This happened to me because of a Christmas present my daughter gave me last week, which, in its own way and without uttering a word, turned into a dharma teaching of the highest order.

Over the past year, our TV viewing experience had deteriorated to the point where we routinely had to just wait for buffering every 5–10 minutes when watching a show. This didn’t happen suddenly. Like the frog in a pot of gradually boiling water, we just tolerated it because it only happened once in a while. Once or twice a week. Without our noticing it, over a period of about three months the interruptions increased incrementally…until it was just ‘That’s how our TV is.’

Then my daughter came to visit.

“How have you been living like this?!” she asked. Um, um, well, we tried to switch internet providers, but…( I don’t know what I said. Jesus. We’re old. You get used to stuff not working after a while. Especially in areas that we don’t understand.) And then she just said, “No seriously, Mom. You don’t have to live like this.”