Working

I don’t want to jinx any­thing, but I’ve been on time to work all five days I’ve been a full-time employ­ee so far. Today I’m tempt­ed to take it one step farther.

Do I have time to get out of the house with my gym bag and my clothes and go work out in the morn­ing, then get dressed? Well, not if I dink around in front of the com­put­er. And this may not be the morn­ing for it any­way. But it’s crazy enough that it just might work.

I woke up at 5:20. It’s 5:35 now. I have to start work at 9am. That gives me enough time to do some­thing oth­er than just get from here to there.

I’ll report back from the office. My boss won’t even be there today, so it’s a real test of my own integri­ty. Will I be on time even when no one is watching?

There’s a koan about that, about a monk who was instruct­ed to take a chick­en where no one could see or hear and kill it. After all the oth­er monks did their home­work, but this one’s assign­ment was incom­plete he explained, “I could­n’t find a place where no one could see — every time I was there watching.”

If a Steve is on time to work and there’s no one there to see, did it real­ly happen?

Don’t know, but I’m going for day 6.