When the Universe Gives You a Test, Take It

There was one morning I was running an errand to a bagel place near me in a little shopping center, and as I was driving through the parking lot, a couple stepped off the curb in front of me without looking.

I stopped. They went on their way.

I was a little irritated, but I figured, hey, maybe it’s early in the morning, they’re just not paying attention.

I parked and when I went into the bagel shop, they were there at the counter placing an order.

While the woman was talking to a server behind the counter, I was walking towards a server who was waiting to help somebody else, and the man slid over and stepped in front of me and tried to place an order with that server.

And she redirected him back to the person who was already helping the woman he was with, and he went back over there.

And after I placed my order and was about to pay, he said, “Oh excuse me.” And he stepped in front of me to put money into a tip jar.

By that time, I was having some hateful thoughts about this person who kept stepping in front of me, but later that day, I thought maybe the universe was giving a test. Maybe this is more about me and my reactions than what this other person was doing. And in thinking it through that scenario and lesson, I realized three things.

Number one, why am I so impatient that this is bothering me, like what is that about? The second realization that I had was that maybe sometimes I’m putting patterns together where there really isn’t one. This could be just sort of three random things that happened and don’t necessarily form a pattern.

The third is that when I let somebody live rent free in my head, that’s really something I can control. Maybe I couldn’t control what happened, but I can control what I think about it after that.

And so, the universe did give me a test. In answering that, I think it was kind of helpful to think that through. When the universe gives you a test, I really encourage you to take it. The answers might reveal some interesting things about yourself that can be truly helpful indeed.