Wrappers and Refunds

After some heavy Internet research yesterday, I had a few surprises.

The first was that the World Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft wasn't listed at £268. It was £168.

The second was that there were a couple of other first editions for sale for around £40.

The third was that when I double checked, mine was not a first edition (1981) but a 1985 edition reprinted in 1987. My love of fast aircraft (check out the F4 Phantom! Oo I do love a nice Harrier!) went on for much longer than I thought.

So the book is heading to the car boot sale and maybe an enthusiastic war veteran will shell out (shell out - geddit?) a tenner.

If I did sell my soul to the Devil for this, I'm sorry, but I want a refund.

I then started to research the value of my collection of Queen (the band, not the Monarch) books and received another surprise. One of them is fairly rare and worth at least £38.

I lost sleep last night whilst my monkey mind tried to work through the logistics of moving in such a short space of time, what possessions I would be left with and the possibility of finding a large unfurnished room available for the price that I wanted.

After Shabbat today, I went to lunch with a girl from Mexico, smoke streaming out of my ears from the worn out logistical cogs in my head. "It's just feels too hard" I lamented "I just don't see how it can happen"

This girl is in her early twenties but she is just so wise. I feel very old and stupid by comparison. Oh, and did I mention that she is beautiful but totally sweet and adorable too? Don't you just hate it when that happens?

She passed on a message that her teacher in Mexico used to repeat. Every good thing that comes to us is concealed in a challenge. Think of it as a gift in a wrapper. We cannot see the gift until we work through the wrappers. The bigger the fulfilment, the more wrappers there are to remove - the more challenges there are to face.

So if ever you feel as though there are too many challenges and that you will never achieve your goal... keep working at it, because the gift is going to be huge.