The mindful ones exert themselves.
They are not attached to any home.
Like swans that abandon the lake,
they leave home after home behind.
—The Dhammapada - Chapter 7, Verse 91
This is the first time since I was eighteen that I’ve slept in the same bed for more than a year. The winds of change seem to blow in a rhythm where I’ve been uprooted annually. Often, the motivations for moving were not so much out of desire but necessity.
For example, I was once the first renter of a two-bedroom apartment, when the landlord found a second renter after I had moved in. The guy himself was nice enough, but for some reason, an absolutely awful smell would seep out of his room and infect the common area.
If you saw a photo of his room, you’d think it appeared normal enough, but if that photo were a scratch-and-sniff sticker, boy, were you in for a surprise.
Anytime he left the apartment with his door open, I would immediately shut it. The closer you got to touching the door, the more it stung the nostrils, and I would wonder if his own nostrils had been damaged in some kind of nostril-damaging accident.
He once invited me into the stench cave to see something on his computer, and it was impossible to breathe. I wanted to shake him by the ears and scream, “Can you not even smell this!?” But instead, I spent extended periods holding my breath and apologizing to my lungs.
I questioned how this guy could even survive in such an offensive environment, but after a few weeks of tolerating this sensory assault, I decided I could not. The landlord was understanding when I told her why I’d be breaking my lease, but this was the moment in my life when I decided that the price of sharing an apartment with someone else was no longer worth the price of my sanity.
That powerful aroma was the catalyst for me to cough up enough cash to pay for privacy and peace of mind, and I’ve never looked back.
I share this with you only to say that sometimes the stinky roommates of life are a blessing in disguise—even if they’re a very, very olfactorily offensive blessing in disguise.
#NamasteOutOfYourRoomThanks