parable of the bike, my version

I've been thinking a lot about service lately and how I need to be doing more of it. I'm on my ward's service committee, so it should be even easier since it's my calling. Somehow, it's still been hard.

Today, someone reminded me to be thinking about it. I got done with class around 5:00 (lonnngggggg day), not to mention my thumb was about to fall off because of an essay test I had just finished. I walked across campus to the overcrowded rack where my bike was locked up, and found a nice little surprise.

Some genius had locked his bike right up next to mine and wound his chain up and around mine. On purpose or accidentally?? It doesn't matter, because my bike was stuck, and I mean stuck, between someone else's bike and the rack!

This was the detangling process.
Approx. length: 20 pathetic minutes.
1: Unwound my lock and then stared, annoyed, at the bike that was squishing mine.
2: Tugged at his chain...maybe hoping it would magically undo itself.
3: Stood back and surveyed the scene again. Found that my bike was indeed very squished and very stuck.
4: Called my mom and asked her what to do. Yeah. Seriously.
5: She didn't have a whole lot of advice that I couldn't have figured out, so I decided I needed to do something sooner or later because I was looking like an idiot at this point since I had been staring at the bike rack for 10 minutes.
6: Started pulling and tugging at the locks and chains and wheels and handlebars...kept on tugging. I probably made it worse.
7: FINALLY, some kid noticed my poor unfortunate self looking an awful lot like a damsel in distress and came over to help. We maneuvered the bikes up and over each other, and I thought it would be impossible, but we did it. We got them untangled.

Now, I didn't mean to make the story about my weird and annoying luck of the day, because the importance is the fact that I couldn't get my bike out alone and someone noticed. He noticed and took the time to help me.

I rode back to my apartment with a new resolve to look for more opportunities to help people. I think it's the whole attitude that makes the difference; if my eyes are open in another way, focused on different things, I'll see different things.

You see what you want to see.