The lost key and what you need in order to find it

Many years ago, I heard this story and it touched me.

One day, John was walking back home when he saw his neighbor, Peter, behaving very strangely; he was crawling on the floor, near his house. Even though they were not friends, but out of a community sense, John approached Peter, greeted him and asked what the problem was.

‘I lost my key… I just dropped it somewhere and I can’t find it!’

John decided to help him and, knees on the floor, started to look for it. After some time, however he couldn’t find anything so he asked another question:

‘I can’t find it either… Do you remember where you dropped it?’

‘Yes! I went to my backyard to see something there and I let it fall.’

‘Backyard?’ John looked at Peter with his back straight, but with the knees still on the sidewalk. ‘So, why are you looking for it here?’

‘Well, it is so dark there…’

John got very angry as he thought it was a prank. He got up and went to his home, leaving Peter crawling on the sidewalk.

I asked myself: where is my key, really? And to be honest, I think I have lost many keys along the years.

It is not uncommon people try to avoid the inevitable – acceptance of mistakes and weakness, problems in relationships, stress, bad health – by sticking to their comfort zone. But, of course, you can’t find a key where you did not lose it which creates confusion and a kind of eternal quest.

Now, let’s retell the same story with a different approach.

One day, Peter arrived late at his house. He took out his key and he was about to enter the house, when he remembered he needed to do something in the backyard.

When he went there, it was too dark… ‘I do need to fix this bulb.’ he thought to himself. Carefully, he did what he went there to do and he was about to go toward the front door when he tripped and fall. After getting up, Peter went fast to the front door, determined to fix the bulb.

But tragedy does not come alone; when he was about to open his door, he realized he lost his key.

Because it was dark there, he rummaged around to see if there was anything he could use to illuminate the backyard, when he heard someone coming; it was John, who greeted his neighbor.

Peter called for him and explained his situation.

‘You know what, don’t worry, I will get a lantern and we both go and look for it together.’

Less than 5 minutes later, Peter was able to enter at his house. He took leave from John and at last he went to fix the backyard bulb.

As you can see, the two tales create a total different outcome. What is the difference between them?

The first thing is self-realization. In the second telling, the neighbor realized he lost something important and tried to fix that, instead of going to his comfort zone and pretending he could fix it from there. Even though it is true the front of the house where the street light gave a sensation of security, it didn’t help him to find the key. One of the main results was that he was able to get cooperation from an outsider to solve the whole situation. His attitude was proactive instead of reactive.

The second thing is a sense of self-empowerment. You can read the first tale as a person who is not empowered enough to solve his own problems whilst in the second version, he is the owner of the house and he is the one who has lost the key because a bulb was not working. By taking over that responsibility, he is able to think straight and go for help.

What is that lost key you can now go and claim again, by looking for it in the right place, even though it is a little dark?