A Subtle Web of Meaning

Sitting inside the Sheraton Hotel Lobby in Toronto, waiting to attend my flight , a man entered the lobby in a frantic state.

With his hands shaking, he held his laptop to his waist in a way that said (in earnest): the morning was not going according to plan.

“Is there WiFi here?”, he asked.

“I’m not sure, maybe try to connect to the lobby WiFi,” I responded.

Frantically, he rummaged through his computer looking for the documents needed to take his new job in a different country.

The man seemed late and in a pinch.

“Do you have a hot spot?”, he asked.

“Sure”, I volunteered calmly.

With gradual layers of relief, we worked together to transfer the needed documents to a nearby terminal and the printer spat out his ticket to a new life.

A WiFi connection, a pen and a little guidance on how to use a Mac, and I apparently I helped transition this man to a new timeline.

Not in a grand and “from the heavens” impact, but my hands played a small part in ferrying a soul from one shore of life to another.

Yet, this was a unique accident.

I’m actually not supposed to here, in this lobby, where I’m sitting now.

I didn’t even know about it until I heard from a women one week ago:

“Yeah. I usually hang out in the hotel lobby when waiting for my flight.”

And there I was, arrival at the airport earlier than needed, in need of a waiting area.

After the man left, I began to think: the “mistake” of early arrival and memory of her comment was the only reason I was here to assist this person.

If I was not here, we do not know what would have happened — would he make his flight or not?

Maybe the only reason he makes his flight is because of me.

Or maybe he would have figured it all out on his own, we can’t know.

The point of writing this is not to stroke my ego with a sense of significance (maybe a little), but an observation:

There is a subtle web of meaning and coincidence that connects each one of us in our lives.

It’s not a thundering sense of transcendental meaning, but a quiet one.

A calm, conscious awareness that the many lives we cross present intersections of timelines, novel worlds, and circumstance.

How subtly that entire web of interaction is constructed.

Small actions and decisions each day and every moment unfold to entirely new timelines and results.

You absolutely cannot know whether the pen you dropped yesterday at the bus stop, was the catalyst to someone’s love of journalling in 10 years time.

It’s improbable and likely futile, but small incidents add up

But it’s a fascinating way to consider: just being, you might be impacting countless lives without even noticing.

Or maybe not. We can’t know. It’s fun to think about though.