The Simplest Gift by Stefanos Xenakis

Author:Stefanos Xenakis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Own Goal

I LOVE VOULIAGMENI, especially in the wintertime. This Athenian seaside suburb gets a little less crowded then. And the colors change. It’s as if the Big Boss is Photoshopping the picture: one day the sky is a bit grayer, the next, the sea a bit bluer, and the following, the wave caps a bit whiter. But this Photoshop software can also play with sounds, smells, and the wind, creating a different experience each time.

Sometimes people intrude on the image, but if you take them as a given, you can still enjoy it. Like lots of people, I used to get annoyed at any little intrusion. Now I just observe and sometimes contemplate.

It’s a Sunday afternoon on the main street in Vouliagmeni. A couple has just parked and they’re getting out of the car to go for a stroll. But they’re going to get annoyed. Not that they mean to, but things can gradually become a habit and then a crutch, and you end up getting annoyed for no good reason.

The man gets out of the driver’s seat, his face puckered with annoyance. “Just get a load of where that asshole parked,” he says, hissing his s’s. His girlfriend looks at the culprit and so do I. We’re both puzzled. The car in front of him is parked slightly in front of the rubbish bin. OK, it wasn’t the best parking job ever, but I’ve seen worse crimes. It wasn’t as if it was blocking a garage exit or another car. I lingered for a bit to gather more clues, but that was the extent of it.

We spend too long with our noses in other people’s business. The experts call it energy and it’s the most important thing you possess. It’s even more important than your health because your energy determines your health. There are things that we can control and that’s where we need to direct all our energy. And yet, we often choose to waste our energy on things we can’t control, usually by criticizing and gossiping. And that’s where we go wrong.

I walked on and thought about the couple. The guy had already ruined half his day and his girlfriend’s, too. He had wasted his energy. And who knows how many times a day he does that? If he’d been a goalkeeper, he would have sent the ball into his own net.

There will come a moment when he looks in the mirror and says, “Just get a load of that asshole,” hissing his s’s again.

When we lack awareness, we fumble the ball.

By misdirecting our energy, we lose everything: our cheerfulness, our appetite, and our lives. And it’s a damn shame.

THEY CALL IT AN “OWN GOAL” IN FOOTBALL.

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