Valet Log: 070411 — God Is a Valet
I recently joked that part of my job as a valet, it seems, is to prevent 2-year-olds from running into the street. Despite not having kids of my own, I can proudly claim membership in that mythological village that it takes to raise one.
Yesterday, while parking one of my manager’s cars, a sermon by Joel Osteen was playing on the stereo. Now, I’ve had more than my share of Evangelical sales pitches for one lifetime. Nevertheless, his words on the topic “Your Life Is Divinely Orchestrated” resonated within me; perhaps, in part, because I’m a composer.
I sat and listened for a while. Osteen’s thesis was that God gives us not only the right friends, but also the right enemies. He lays obstacles in our path — in the form of rejections, betrayals and other ass-whoopins — to keep us on the path to our destiny.
My take on this theme is that life is a maze of hallways and doors. Some doors are locked. Others are open and we’re curious about what lies beyond; but the doors close before we can cross the threshold. Sometimes our friends, coworkers and even the girl of our dreams are partying hard behind one of those doors, and we want so badly to join them. And even though our names are on the guest list and we know all of the people inside, the bouncer won’t let us in.
All of this has gotten me to wondering about the many schools I haven’t gotten into — Juilliard, NYU, Northwestern, Columbia College, to name a few — the many work places from which I’ve been turned away — in many of which I could have thrived — the many social circles into which I didn’t fit — because I was too handsome or too swarthy or too outgoing or too shy or too religious or too skeptical or too liberal or too individualistic (even for liberals), or because I drank too much or not at all (now), or because I had a “weird” sense of humor and I wouldn’t laugh at the pack leader’s lame jokes — and the many beautiful women who wouldn’t give me the time of day for all of the above reasons.
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I am a 2 year-old; and God is a valet.
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Of course, there is plenty of room for improvement on my part. I can improve my social skills, so as to attract better women. I can learn to market myself more effectively, so as to create better job opportunities. And I can get plastic surgery to dull my handsomeness and brighten my complexion.
I, too, have denied myself opportunities for work and pleasure, simply because of my own untreated character defects. Part of my destiny, it seems, is to acknowledge and arrest my own shortcomings. This presupposes that I am aware of these flaws, in the first place.