Every morning, I wake up with the same thoughts: ' What will this day bring?' I often conclude my thoughts with a little prayer for guidance as I order up the kind of day I want to have. This is never more important than working with a large group. Do I allow myself to be swayed by just anything passing me by? Or do I have a purpose and a plan for my day?
Most often, the plan for the day falls into my lap, and this information comes through during my morning meditation and writing time. I find that situations and circumstances in all areas of my life recapitulate through my head. My task is to master the lesson rather than to identify with the environment I'm living, moving, and breathing in.
Yesterday, I had my last day of robotics training. This day we included a friendly competition. My teammate and I were both relatively new to robotics and decided our job was to challenge ourselves to bring our robotic skills to a whole new level. We did this by asking more complex questions, going beyond what was expected, taking a little more time to see it through, and programming our little robot to pincher grasp rather than just pushing an object into a goal zone.
However, with the competition came the butterflies. The kind of butterflies that sit in your stomach and make your knees shake a little, affecting your grip on the remote control of the robot, and before you realize what's happening, the robot is stuck in an awkward position on the playing field, even the competition judge scratches his head over. However, none of this was my purpose for being at the robotics training and competition. My roots ran a little deeper.
Every morning, I say a little mantra. In this mantra, I include the words "To Serve." My daily intention is to understand my true self and, by analogy, the greater whole so that I may Serve. So, I stood watching the robotics competition involving about 40 participants and realized the butterflies I was experiencing weren't my own. I reminded myself that the notion of competition was a false belief, anyway. The Universe is abundant, and one goes within oneself to tap the source of abundance to find it. So, rather than thinking in terms of a competitive attitude, I decided to ask myself about my strategy for scoring points in the competition.
At that moment, I meditated while standing on my feet, eyes wide open, and began seeing the competition in a new light. The butterflies were gone; the sounds from a robust competition began to fade into the background. I stared at my robot, and a strategy was clearly formulated in my head. My team was next to compete. I picked up the robot with the remote control and carried it to the gaming table for the next match. Upon the official start of the game, with judges and peers watching, I drove my little robot to the object necessary (an orange hub), pincher grasped it, and maneuvered the object skillfully to the goal, scoring a point. My teammate cheered!
The profundity of the moment had nothing to do with scoring a point or the strategy I was able to see through. It was about the moment I realized I wasn't there for myself.
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