I don’t know why it’s a thing with me, but I always wanted to have jury duty.
I think it’s alot like wanting to be able to work at a fast food chain when I was young…
It’s about belonging.
Those are not things I was allowed to do as a kid, because I wasn’t a citizen and legal to work. The thought of being able to work at McDonald’s seemed like the coolest thing in the world, as did having to serve on a jury to be part of the American Justice system.
For whatever reason, I never got called. I have been a citizen since 1995, and I never got called. I truly believed that I had been blackballed from that whole process, as everyone I know has served at least once.
Well, I finally got called a month ago, and this week was my first week with JURY DUTY.
In some ways it was a little disappointing, in other ways it was so very special.
Truth is, I never showed up anywhere nor sat in a small jury box hearing testimony. I called from my cell phone 3 days in a row to be told,
“Groups 1 - 40 do not need to report tomorrow, Please call again tomorrow”
Truth is - I’ve got a ton going on, so not having Jury Duty is FOUND time, and a gift.
I hope to be called someday again, and to actually sit in a jury box and help the justice system function, but for now it sits on that shelf with so many other experiences, “they are better in the movies”.
BUT, HERE IS A THOUGHT…
What if life was more like the Jury Duty Process in Howard County, Maryland?
What do I mean?
Every day this week, I didn’t own my time… my day. I didn’t know if I’d get the day or have the day “taken from me” by a higher power…
IMAGINE if life was like that…
EVERYDAY you have to call in at 5:00 pm, and a voice on the other line will tell you…
“Tomorrow is YOURS, You get to live ONE more day!”
IMAGINE how our lives would be different if we had to make that call everyday to find out…
Maybe it would become a pain in the ass, and we’d all expect to simply hear that we were free to live another day… after all the “you don’t get a tomorrow” message would only be heard once.
What if the call was different, what if someone controlled your life so that it was not life or death, but rather FREEDOM or NOT…
“Tomorrow your life will be owned by the State” or
“Tomorrow you get to life your life fully”
And, with some regularity - the state took your freedom on random days…
What if the call was about your joy or happiness, and you were told which days you got to feel your full range of emotions and other days you were controlled in what you were able to feel…”
OK - maybe I am getting too much sleep lately,
or not enough..
But, it was an elating, exciting, refreshing feeling to have to call everyday…
to hear if tomorrow belonged to me or not?
How would your life be different if you couldn’t plan ahead…
if you didn’t know if tomorrow
was a given…
It’s
NOT!
Life deliberately, gratefully, and responsibly impulsively…
in harmony,
Nestor