A Tale of Two Cell Phones

My friend’s phone was stolen. For her, the theft was traumatic. For me, the theft was a gift. I have spent many hours thinking about her theft, and it has given me some new spiritual insights.

Here is what happened, according to my friend. She had stepped out of her car and dropped the phone. She realized she didn’t have it and went back to the car. The phone was not there. She called the phone and sent messages. They were not answered. Obviously, the phone had been stolen. She vented her anger on Facebook: “Hopefully Karma will catch up to the thief!” She posted several more messages about how victimized she felt.

What made this interesting is that almost the exact same event happened to me six months earlier. I had checked something on my phone before entering my house. When I entered my house, I no longer had my phone. I went back and looked for it. I called it, sent messages, but no one answered. I felt so silly that I had dropped my phone. I put a note outside my house, saying, “Perdí mi celular. Recompensa de 1000 pesos.” “I lost my cell phone. 1000 peso (about 50$) reward.” Within 10 minutes, a woman knocked at my door. She handed me my cell phone. I thanked her profusely and gave her 1000 pesos. She was very happy to receive an amount of money that was almost two week's salary for her. I was very happy to have my 8,000 peso phone back for only 1000 pesos.

I suggested to my friend that she put up a similar note offering a reward for her cell phone. She did, offering twice the reward I had offered, and her note also worked. A local woman returned the phone to her. Here is my friend’s description of her interaction with the woman who found her phone: 

Her story was suspicious, dubious at best, as to why she didn’t answer the continuous sound alarms, a visual message (Spanish and English) with my name, address and a contact phone number and she is going to buy “new clothes”, 2000 pesos richer, but I have my cell phone!!…

The thing that struck me is how differently we saw two events that were essentially identical. My friend saw herself as the victim of an injustice. I saw myself as the beneficiary of a kindness. She saw herself as paying money as a ransom. I saw myself as offering a reward as an expression of gratitude. She is still bitter. I am still grateful.

The question I have been asking myself is: what accounts for this dramatically different understanding of two essentially identical situations? 

We both constructed different narratives about what happened. In her narrative, someone stole her phone and she was forced to pay the dirty thief 2000 pesos to ransom her phone. She was the innocent victim. The finder was the thief.  In my narrative, I lost my phone and I gave a kind person 1000 pesos as a reward for finding it. I was the careless forgetful one. My finder was the hero.

Which narrative is right? Both narratives are supported by the facts. So how does one choose? I believe we choose our narratives based on how we understand the world. She sees the world as a harsh place, populated by people just waiting to screw you. I see the world as a loving place, full of people just wanting to be kind. 

As I have thought about this, I have come to believe something even more profound. We not only choose the narrative that fits our perception of the world, but our perception of the world is changed by our choice of narratives. Because of the narrative she chose, she now sees the world as even more harsh than before. And because of the narrative I chose, I now see the world as even kinder than I did before. Both of our understandings of the world have been reinforced by the specific narrative we chose.

So I leave you with this hope. May one day you lose your phone, and have it returned by a kind stranger. May you never have your phone stolen, and have to ransom it back from a rotten thief. If you can’t decide which of these two happened, just think about how you want to see the world. Then choose the appropriate narrative. Choose wisely. You may lose more than a phone.

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Spiritual questions:

• What naratives have you chosen?
• How have they changed your perspective?
• Are there any naratives you would like to change?

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January 5, 2023 - This was written as a spiritual narative for meditationchapel.org.
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This is one of my Parables for the Spiritual but not Religious Series.

The photograph is by Peter Burka and made available through Flickr and Creative Commons, some rights may be reserved.