The Jogger's Park

1

Bruce did not know what he wanted. His hands shook as he fiddled with the mobile phone, and it fell down. He was wondering what Dr. Albert would say upon looking at his stretched hands.

‘Should I go jogging today?’ he thought while pouring green tea from the kettle. He saw himself in the glass body of the kettle. He wore jogging attire. The place where he had ceased thinking came back to him.

‘Or, should I just stay home and read this new book?’

Laziness was not an issue here. ‘Maybe I will read tonight,’ he thought.

Bruce seemed to know that he struggled with chronic stress that affected his decisions.

 2

He stepped outside, unsure whether he was escaping from something. He wanted an answer.

The Al Nahda Park at 6.00 a.m seemed to give a desolate look. Unlikely for a Sunday. It had rained the other night. Rain in the desert has its own calming effect that the nature reverberates in a rather nice and pleasant way.

The benches were moist and smelled of wood that seemed to blend with the wet soil. There were puddles here and there, and the birds seemed to wash themselves before the kids would arrive to jump and scatter the muddy puddles.

The grass was fresh and the birds chirpy. He brushed aside a mulberry bush, spraying aerosols in a fine spray. That cooled his mind.

Nobody is here. But they will come as the sun dawns much brighter.

3

For some crazy reason, Bruce wanted to jog on the cycle track, although he liked the sound of crunching gravel on the boulevard. Sound has its own therapeutic reasons. Bruce remembered he had to play Sombr on Spotify. ‘Fine’ was his best song, and he was not afraid to loop it.

As he jogged, he could see a boy cleaning a buoy in the pond. The boy was scrubbing the buoy with sandpaper.

He thought how lucky he’d been, living a decent life and he didn’t have to struggle on Sundays. Do they have a similar problem that he has?

He waved at the boy, and the boy returned a thankful smile.

As he trod further, Bruce felt he saw a man in white seated on a bench near the artificial waterfall. The man was reading a newspaper, so he couldn’t see the face. He had passed the man. It was odd; he did not see anyone in his first round.

He stopped in his tracks and turned back. He walked to the man, crunching gravel that caught the man’s attention. The man lowered the newspaper. He was old, maybe in his early seventies. He smiled at Bruce.

Bruce waved at him and felt silly. The old man was an older adult, and he felt it was impolite to wave.

‘Can I sit here for a moment?’ Bruce asked.

‘You seem to be tired after just one round,’ the old man said still smiling.

That took Bruce by surprise. ‘But sir, I didn’t see you coming.’

‘I was here all the while. I see you all the while,’ the man said.

Bruce moved his hand over his scrubby jaw. He looked at the old man, trying to understand if he had met this character before.

‘Confused?’ the man asked in a fatherly tone. ‘It seems to me that you are very anxious to know how I could sense all this, isn’t it? Well, you can call me a doctor for now.’

You are not? Bruce thought.

The man laughed as if he had understood what Bruce was thinking, and placed his fragile hand on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce was feeling uneasy about this.

A stranger offering me help?

‘Son!’ he paused…

‘Can I call you son? You seem to my son’s age too,’ the old man said.

Bruce nodded.

‘We’d been through these phases of life. I understood your malady when you’d asked me how I was here in the first place,’ he said.

For the first time in his life, Bruce felt he was meeting a right person. Although he was nervous about confessing his problems to a stranger, apart from the good doctor Albert. But he felt that the old man was wise.

‘You can beat stress,’ the old man said in an air of confidence that reflected experience, something that Bruce wanted to witness. ‘You don’t seem to do the right thing.’

‘I do meditation, I exercise, and I work hard to keep myself busy. What else does one need?’ Bruce questioned.

‘You need to have something called a ‘self-belief’ that resonates with what you are doing, son. Else everything might be superficial. That is where you are exactly stuck,’ he said.

Bruce seemed to remember these lines from the new book that he was reading.

Is he the author of that book?

‘But.. but.. what is the point? It never seems to stay more than a day,’ he said

‘You have too many minds.’

‘I do prioritize my work,’ Bruce intervened.

‘Prioritizing won’t work unless you show that inner self working for you,’ the old man said with a smile.

‘But how?’

‘It is within you, son. Keep the faith in what you are doing. Faith matters the most. If you do not have the faith in yourself, then, who would?’

Bruce had a questioning look.

‘I’m absolutely sure, you had a confusion to stay back home or coming to jog, didn’t you?

‘Absolutely!’ Bruce exclaimed.

‘Now, why would that happen? if you knew exactly, what you were doing was right in either way,’ the old man smiled.

‘That’s the usual, and that is my problem.’

‘It’s the analysis paralysis,’ the old man continued, ‘let us put it in this way. You are in a loop of thoughts of uncertainty. Do you agree?’

‘I think you have a point. But it doesn’t resolve my problem entirely. I don’t see where you want to arrive,’ Bruce said.

The old man smiled.

‘You see this? You are afraid to accept.’

‘Afraid? I don’t get you? I’m sorry,’ Bruce said with a laugh that carried a lot of doubts.

‘You fail to self-reflect but you self-ruminate easily. Your stress is making you overthink.’ The old man said with a wink.  ‘Tell me? Did you self-ruminate when you were young?’

‘Not that I remember. Why do you ask?’ Bruce questioned.

‘Because, as kids, we let go. We don’t hold on to our thoughts, and as we mature, the nature puts us in a test. And we are in a loop. The world will give many names to it as a materialistic life and stuff like that. But the question is that it is there with anyone and you just have to understand that it exists.’

‘The question is, are we really mature?’ Bruce asked.

‘Absolutely and congratulations! you’ve hit the nail at the right spot. We are what we think. Think of this as a self-reflection.’

‘And that beats the loop, isn’t it?’ Bruce said with a sign of relief.

‘Yes, don’t you think too much about deciding what to do and what not? over thinking can only aggravate stress and it leads to self-rumination of fears and indecisiveness. Its effects are more profound than the actual stress itself,’ he said with a smile.

Bruce nodded.

The old man looked at his watch. ‘I guess, it’s the time for us to part now.’

‘Tell me sir? Are you an author or a mindfulness teacher?’ Bruce asked. ‘Or are you a doctor?’

‘I’am what I’am. If you are reading a book, read it for your self-reflection. You will find your answers there.’ The old man smiled and walked away.

‘I won’t overthink when I read. I promise you,’ Bruce shouted behind him.

The old man waved a salutation without turning back to Bruce and walked out of the gate.

4

Bruce returned home a happy man. After breakfast (he did not decide what to cook for the first time in many days and he was ever thankful to the old man’s advice), Bruce opened the book to continue form where he had left.

Somewhere in the end, there was a quote from the author – Every human being in this world has a guardian angel to whom he or she is linked with. While in difficulty it is the guardian angel that would come to the rescue. And you don’t have to look for HIM.

Bruce smiled for the first time that day.