Getting Lost in Passwords

After a long day, all I wanted was to get inside my home as quickly as possible. With my backpack, handbag, and shopping bags, I made my way from the parking lot to the building entrance. During the journey, one of my bags broke and tomatoes spilled everywhere, so I had to take an involuntary break. I quickly typed in the entrance code to open the door and pressed the "enter" key. But the door didn’t open… I thought I might have mixed it up. With the weight of the bags, I struggled to type the code with just two fingers of my right hand, and it still didn’t work.

I took a deep breath, intending to use the skill I had developed to view the situation as just another event of the day. I tried another password, one that I use often. It seemed that life was really intent on playing games with me that day. The third code was also incorrect. The system locked me out for a while after three failed attempts. Never having encountered this before, with both my arms and mind tired, I dropped my bags and sat down on the step between the parking lot and the building entrance. I asked myself...

"What is your current emotion?" I felt many emotions, but one shouted the loudest: 'Exhaustion.' The others quietly stepped aside.

When I saw the emotion 'exhaustion' in front of me, I stopped asking myself questions and started asking it questions. "Dear exhaustion, what was the situation that led to your appearance?" Exhaustion replied, "You may not realize it, but for the past three days, your life has revolved around passwords."

Two days ago, you tried to renew your membership for a group you belong to, but after three wrong attempts, you had to wait 12 hours for a new link. This upset and panicked you because it was the last two days for membership renewal.

That same day, you tried to access your online banking accounts to make payments, but after locking them out, you spent hours on the phone with customer service to regain access. This frustrated you because you were at the deadline for making those payments.

Last night, you entered the security code for the building entrance and forgot to press "enter" once inside, setting off the alarm and waking up the entire building. This embarrassed you, and you felt very self-conscious in front of your neighbors.

Then, late at night, you tried to enter the PIN code for your phone, but after three failed attempts, you spent minutes on the phone with the GSM company. You were so impatient at this point that you almost broke your phone.

And now, today, the winner of the password saga is the entrance code for your building. And now you're asking me what caused my appearance? Panic, frustration, embarrassment, impatience… All of these emotions combined brought me into existence.

Then, exhaustion asked me a question, "What does all of this show you?" I paused for a moment. It was like I hadn’t really realized the pattern in the past two days.

The exhaustion was right! I hadn’t noticed it until now. After a brief silence, exhaustion asked again: "I can see the light in your eyes, your shoulders have lifted a bit. What did you feel as you observed what passed before you?"

The only thing I felt was the emotion of 'losing myself in passwords.' I wasn’t managing the passwords anymore, they were managing me. This feeling of losing myself was causing me to experience multiple negative emotions in one day and take them all on.

I didn't want to say it to exhaustion. I stayed silent.

Then, exhaustion’s voice started to fade, and it said, "As your shoulders rise and I see the light in your eyes, my power diminishes. Now, the emotion of 'losing myself' wants to step in. Goodbye."

Suddenly, a softer and more gentle voice appeared: "Hello, I am the emotion of 'losing myself.' Thank you for finding me. How did you find me amidst the passwords? I'm curious to know." The voice was kind and warm.

For a moment, I found myself surrounded by the sequence of numbers and letters forming the passwords. I wasn’t doing anything; I was standing still as the numbers and letters of various sizes and speeds came towards me, and I was trying to move this way and that.

I saw it all, but I stayed silent. I just took a deep breath and thought to myself, "Get me out of here."

The emotion of losing myself had heard me. It noticed my deep breath and asked, "What would it feel like if you could leave this place? What did you want to release when you took that deep breath?"

This time, I spoke with confidence: "Freedom! Yes, I would feel free once I leave this place." With a sense of assurance, my voice was calm, and with that deep breath, I let go of the emotion of losing myself.

Now, my final visitor was the emotion of 'trust.' The feelings inside me had voiced themselves.

We sat in silence again for a while. Then, in a calm, peaceful, and compassionate tone, 'trust' asked me: "What do you need in order to not get lost in passwords again and to not be trapped by them?"

What do I need? Hmm... I hadn't thought about this at all, but now it hit me. Maybe a little order, maybe some slowness, maybe focus...

With a strong and reassuring voice, trust asked again, "Which one do you need the most?"

This time, with the deep voice of trust, I whispered, "Order, first and foremost."

I didn’t want any more questions. I came back to myself. I knew what I needed to do to create that order. First, I picked up the scattered tomatoes and put them back into the bag. Then, I gently typed in the building's entrance code with empty hands and got inside.

I climbed to the first floor, opened my apartment door, placed the bags on the floor, entered the alarm code, and pressed 'enter.' I entered the house without incident. I left the bags in the kitchen and my handbag on the chair in the entrance. I took a notepad from my workspace and began taking action.

Since that day, I have kept the promises I made to myself, and I haven’t lost myself in any passwords. Life’s passwords are solved, created, and managed by us. When we feel lost, the only thing to do is to stop for a moment and reflect: Do the passwords control me, or do I control them?