The Key is in Your Pocket

One morning last week during our morning “rush hour” I could not find my keys.

“Where are they? They’re always in my coat pocket at this point.”

As I juggled Mayer and Yehudis, I tried to find the keys. I covered all of the tables, rooms, nooks and crannies. No keys!

What do you do if you’re in a real bind? I texted my wife. She called me immediately and asked me if they were in one of the usual suspect places. As I was speaking to her I thought, “Let me stick my hand in this coat pocket one last time just…”

Found them.

How could that be? I already checked there. They were hiding beneath a glove and a pair of 180 ear muffs. How dare they!

A recurring life question bubbled up in my mind not long after key-gate. “What can I learn from this?

The following idea emerged.

When you’re looking for something, look deeper in the places you’d expect to find it. You don’t need to scour exotic and unusual places.

Very often, we seek joy, pleasure, identity, meaning, and life’s other important qualities in exotic places. We cover the globe in the digital morning paper; we read this book and that book to try and discover ourselves; we yearn for a trip to the islands, the mountains, the beaches in order to acquire serenity.

More often than not, what we’re looking for is right at our fingertips. More joy is waiting for us if we put in more effort at our homes. Greater self-knowledge is at hand when we sit and “go inside” for more than just a few moments. Meaning is practically jumping off the pages of the books of Torah that line our bookshelves.

So the next time you feel like you’re missing something, stop, breathe deeply, and look deeper at the people, situation, and time that is right before your eyes. No traveling required.