esrosedotblog

CLEARING AWAY THE BRUSH

Last Thursday, I did a lot of trimming around the back patio. Our plants. Within the border.

A big part of the trim was the encroaching grapefruit tree from the dividing wall--right over the line but neither my neighbor's or mine.

It was at the end of a good deal of work and I was tired and vulnerable to my lazy side so I got a brainstorm.

Watch out for brainstorms.

I called the complex manager and asked if he could bend the rules some and have the gardeners take away the big hard to trim and bag branches. We are supposed to do that. The gardeners have a routine and are not available for private work unless contacted directly then they do it off line and we pay them something for it.

The manager asked a few questions, reminded me of the policy and said that he would make an exception and tell the gardeners to pick the stuff up the next day. Tell them the next day. Not necessarily to pick them up the next day.

So I waited. And waited. A week.

The branches were still there.

By yesterday or the day before, I was able to admit to myself that I had, one more time, tried to get away with something, be entitled, get over or get around a rule or an authority.

The workability of such maneuvers has been obvious to me for a long time and I thought that I was over it. In this case passive aggressive. Ignore the "order".

So. I am back to basic principles here. Take responsibility for yourself and do the work you generate. Clean as you go. Don't try to con others. Don't be selfish. All that.

I am not against rule breaking when the motive is "right". But that is not the case here. I would get no support from my neighbors on this or, for that matter, even a disinterested observer.

And I did it without one iota of consciousness that I was trying to do what I was trying to do.

The world works when we follow the rules and the world was not working. I thought first, still a bit entitled, about calling the manager back and telling them they hadn't done the work. In other words I would repeat the same behavior and expect different results.

I considered going to the gardener directly and talked to him about trimming our trees out front and, incidentally, asking about the derelict branches. Another con job and, not only that, it is too early to prune the trees. Too hot.

Then yesterday, I just relaxed. I decided to go and cut the branches up, bag them and put them at the curb like everyone else.

In the end, the job was not nearly as bad as I had imagined the first day. It took about 15 minutes. The garbage men came in time for me to get one of three bags onto their truck. And, get this. I had the time because the power went out this morning at 530 in our neighborhood and I had no diversions. No blog. No news. No email. No, well, anything but to do what was in front of me.

It is done.

I feel good.

The manager will forget about this. Even I will forget about the incident but, I hope, not the lesson.

It is the same one I got from my Dad. Clean as you go. Clean up your own mess. Don't fuck with other people or they will fuck with you.

Later I learned how this kind of stuff builds resentments in relationships and clogs the arteries of social intercourse.

I try to pull a fast one and the other rebels or refuses or doesn't respond at all, I get pissed and push harder and then, war.

So some character building occurred this week. Some old repairs and a new lesson about this group living in a condo association. Follow the fucking rules.

Labels: life, spiritual life