After a busy day at work, I was on my way home, using one hand to read a book and the other to hold on to the handrail of the train. I decided to purchase a travel card for the next day at the station. I got my wallet out of my jacket, removed the travel card, put my wallet back into my jacket and walked home.

As I was changing into sports clothes to go to my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes, I started to look for my wallet to buy some food after the class. But the wallet wasn’t in the jacket. It’s not where I thought it would be. I was 100% convinced I put the wallet back inside. So I manically searched all of the pockets. Then I searched the entire house, the dining table, the toilet, the couch...nothing. The bloody wallet wasn’t in my house. I must have dropped it when I was exiting the train station after buying that stupid travel card.

So I decided to go back to the train station to retrace my steps. I saw a station assistant and walked over to him, hoping that somebody might have found it on the floor and given it back to some workers from the station. There I was, wearing my white Gi and a black hoodie with red spiders on top, asking for my wallet. The guy told me nobody brought him any wallet, so I went back home.

My main worry was the debit card, so I called my bank and cancelled it. I kept searching while thinking of all the important documents I had in it. I was going crazy trying to figure out what the hell happened.

An hour later I called my dad to talk about it. I explained the whole situation, and the only question he asked was: “Son, how is that jacket where you put the wallet in?”

I looked at the jacket in which I thought I left my wallet...and I realised it wasn’t the jacket I was wearing when I bought the travel card. The right jacket was inside my wardrobe, and guess what was inside the inner pocket? You got it, my wallet! So, super excited with my wallet in my hand and my debit card cancelled, I thanked my dad for brightening up my mind.

You see? Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees. Sometimes we get obsessed with an idea or a person. We think that person is the right one for us, but we are so goddamn wrong. We just don’t realise we are wrong because we, as stupid human beings, tend to believe our best lies. It’s really hard for us to let go of an idea, to accept that we have been wrong all this time.

The solution for this? Ask someone who is outside of the scene, someone that can see things clearly from above. Plus it is good, from time to time to reevaluate our own ideas and convictions, to look for a change, in the pursuit of improving ourselves.

If you are not getting the results you want by going in one direction, then turn the wheel and go in a different direction. This is something that my Jiu Jitsu coach (one of the greatest people I have known in my life) often tells me when I am trying a certain move and cannot pass my opponent’s guard. He would shout at me, “Try the other side, caralho!” To him it is so obvious what to do, because he has way more experience than I do.

So open your eyes and your mind, and look for what you want in the wrong jacket.


Tim Kline

Grappler Community

Contributed by the Grappler community.