Faith in the Universe Plus Letting Go – a Powerful Combination

It was a powerful combination alright – it’s that moment when you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut and then in the head. The gut punch is fear and shock at the realisation of what’s happened. The head punch is the voice of self-condemnation.

It was the moment, after a glorious long weekend spent celebrating my wife, Jo’s 59^th birthday on beautiful Rottnest Island, that I realised that our luggage was nowhere to be seen. I frantically paced around the jetty, watched by random passers-by and people fishing nonchalantly off the edge. The ferry office was closed, not a staff member in sight, the luggage cages were chained up with no sign of our bags, and the ferry had departed for its last stop.

The Build-Up

We had checked out of the hotel around 11am and left our bags at reception for the porters to take across later, with instructions that we weren’t leaving until the last ferry at 6.30pm, that we were heading off to cycle around the island, but that we would be back in the afternoon to get changed. We couldn’t complete the checkout because the internet had crashed, which might explain why those instructions were clearly not logged.
When we returned around 2.15pm to check out and get changed, our bags had already been taken. Thus, as I later stood on the Fremantle jetty wondering what could have happened, all the worst hypotheticals began to flood my mind, including that they must have gone on an earlier ferry by mistake and been left for someone to steal perhaps.

Our Reaction and the Battle with the Inner Critics

“No. Think clearly.” I told myself. “They wouldn’t just dump them and leave. They’d notice them uncollected and take them back to the main office at the other port.” So, we jumped back in the car and drove from the B-Shed terminal to the North Port Terminal.
There we met a man whose name I never saw spelt, but it sounded like Atmen. He was brilliant – professional, courteous, reassuring and calm. His crew searched the ferries to no avail. Nobody had seen bags left anywhere, so his theory was that they must still be on the island. We filed an official report, and he told us not to worry, items are sometimes misplaced, but hardly ever lost, so he’d track them down and call us back in the morning. I had also rung the hotel, where a receptionist called Eleanor (spelling unknown) also offered to work on the missing luggage mystery with a polite and reassuring tone.

We drove home, and of course we imagined the worst. This is where your inner critic yells loudest. I hadn’t wanted to cycle around the island with my laptop, so I had left it safely in the bag at reception, thinking I’d swap it over to my day bag when we got back just after lunchtime. That was insured. My personal journal, however, could neither be insured nor replaced. “You never take that travelling, you idiot”, I ranted at myself inside my head. It was all my thoughts, powerful quotes and notes from 2021 to the present. It would mean nothing to a stranger and a thief would merely toss it in the nearest garbage bin.

Then Jo and I started adding up in our heads the value of the innocuous items, like toiletries, clothes, shoes, luckily no jewellery, but make-up (in Jo’s bag) and emergency travel medications in mine. After listening briefly to the inner voices of self-ridicule and blame, we calmed ourselves.

The Philosophical, Considered Response

Every day, over morning coffee, I read aloud to Jo extracts from the teachings of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus, plus others. What would these great Stoic Philosophers have made of this?

They would have told us to (a) trust in the Universe – if you’re meant to get your stuff back, you will, and (b) if you’re not, and it’s been lost or stolen, there’s a lesson in this, or better still, some yet-to-be-revealed opportunity that will arise from this setback, so let it all go.

The irony was not lost on us that these same bags had travelled with us thousands of kilometres (miles) all over the world from Bali to USA, Canada, the Alaskan wilderness and back without incident, yet had somehow gone missing in the 21kms between Rottnest and Fremantle!

My mother, Vera, a wise lady always used to say, “If it’s not meant to be, there will be something better around the corner.”

Both Atmen and Elenor were fantastic, from both sides of the ocean. They made phone calls, eliminated possibilities and kept us informed throughout the next day, and on into the following day. Neither of them gave any sign of losing faith that the bags would turn up, somewhere, somehow.

Half of our minds kept faith in the Universe that they would turn up. The other half let it all go – they were merely possessions that could be replaced. Sure, there would be inconvenience, especially in setting up a replacement laptop with all the apps and passwords – if you’ve ever upgraded to a new laptop, you’ll know what I mean – there’s a lot of swearing and gnashing of teeth! Sure, some items had sentimental value, or would be hard or even impossible to replace, like tee-shirts bought in the USA, Canada and even Alaska on recent holidays, but as we reminded ourselves, “What about the poor people who lost everything in Perth’s recent bushfires, or the people in war zones around the world?”

Interestingly, you can sympathise with someone else’s plight, and it may give you some perspective, yet it doesn’t eradicate your own feelings about your own situation.

The Resolution

Then, just as we had almost, but never quite, resigned ourselves to the worst case of ‘no cases’, we got a phone call from a lovely, honest young Aussie, named Bailey. He had been fishing on the jetty that evening with his mate and had seen the bags still there as he was going home. So, he put them in his mate’s car, intending to call us in the morning, as our bags were clearly labelled. Alas, the next day, he had a death in the family, so was very preoccupied, and he apologised for not having called us that day. Long story short, I drove down to Fremantle and collected the bags from him, thanking him profusely and giving him a tip for his trouble, which he didn’t want to take because he’s a champion (and Aussies don’t embrace the whole tipping culture like in the USA), but I insisted. The luggage contents were all present.

Oh, and by the way, the Senior Manageress at the ferry company pretty much called us idiots because ‘their crew had clearly done their job’ in dumping the bags on the jetty, so it was our fault we didn’t find them, even though they weren’t where they thought they’d be, and there was no staff member around for us to ask. She gave ‘zero fxxks’, but maybe she’d just had a bad day, or was traumatised from something awful. I don’t know, so I chose ‘let it go’. We still thanked her for calling us back.

The Lessons

So, what did we learn, or have reinforced to us, apart from the increased urgency in buying luggage tracking tags before the next adventure?

1. Trust in the Universe (substitute your own spiritual word for a higher power) – it (he/she/whatever) has got your back (always), and it has a bigger plan.

2. The bigger plan means that things happen for a reason, and maybe we don’t always know what that reason is. (Sometimes, we never find out, but sometimes we do, later, when we can connect the dots backwards).

3. Every setback or adversity carries with it the seeds of equal or greater opportunities. We just need to be alert enough to take notice and act on them when they appear.

4. We are always blessed to meet good people, like Atmen, Eleanour and Bailey in this story. Gratitude creates positive vibes which attract more positive outcomes.

5. Material things can’t be taken with us into the next realm (sorry, ancient Egyptians), so stuff is just stuff. What matters are people, family, friends, your health and the love you give and receive.

6. Most people are good when they are given the right opportunity and circumstances. Of course, there are exceptions, but love always conquers evil in the end.

7. Don’t catastrophise or ‘lose your shit’ (AKA behave like a stroppy child). It never helps, and especially when you’re talking to people in service industries. Be nice and people do their best to help. Be a dick and they won’t go out of their way to help – simple. I’ve been that service person too many times to recall.

8. Faith in the Universe, plus letting go, is a powerful combination.

9. Always focus on the gratitude. We had a fantastic mini break together, healthy, safe, alive, met up with good friends and celebrated our good fortunes. We are truly blessed. Don’t dwell on the darkness and let a setback dominate your thoughts over all that good stuff.

I hope that story had some value for you too.