It was 10:50 AM and I was in “race mode” to make it to a haircut appointment by 11:00. Having lived in Los Angeles over 16 years, I have developed the “over-compensation” gene when it comes to matters of driving time.

I have never liked being late, thanks to a high school drama teacher who would take away any coveted lead or supporting roles from us thespians if we were even one minute late for a rehearsal. This rule benefitted me. As an underclassmen, I got promoted to the lead role when the senior ran into the auditorium ten minutes late complaining of lost keys. “Not fair!” he shouted, glaring at the teacher and at me. This kind of gain was uncomfortable and I had visions of accidentally being late the following day so he could get his role back. But, that wasn’t the way it worked. Our instructor would continue to go down the list of eligibles. “A rule is a rule and there are plenty of people in line!” he stated. The late-comers would now become chorus or “techies.” “Time is one of our greatest gifts,” he would profess “and how we spend it, one of our greatest responsibilities. Don’t waste yours or someone else’s.”

I chose never to forget the value of the lesson.

That’s not to say I’ve never been late since. Even with the strongest of intentions, there have been moments when my former teacher would have recast my role in life’s unfolding drama. With as much traveling as I do and living in one of the largest cities in the country, there are occassions where I have mis-judged, waded through a sea of traffic, been at the mercy of airline delays and cancellations or experienced an automobile glitch or two. OK, even the rare early morning reflex of hitting the snooze alarm to gain a few precious minutes has cut it close, but it certainly has never been the norm.

Now, it was a combination of street construction and a less-than-optimum alternate route I had chosen that was destined to make me show up with heavy-breathed apologies.

As I sat at an eternal red light wondering how I could have left the cell phone charging on the dining room table, I glanced to my right at the briskly paced postman. As he withdrew his arm from his mail bag, a small trail of envelopes followed, then fell to the ground.

“Surely, he felt or heard that?” I questioned. But the answer was an immediate no. His quickened pace continued to the next block. “I don’t have time to do anything about it,” I reasoned and drove through as the light changed.

“Besides, it’s too hard to change lanes, circle the block, park, find the mail and the postman and get back into this snail-crawling traffic.” I made it a few more blocks till the voice inside was too loud to ignore.

“What if that were your mail?"

I elaborately filmed the TV movie, Lost Mail, in my cinematic head. Here sat the elderly, frail widow ( a subdued Irene Ryan from The Beverly Hillbillies coming back from the grave in her final dramatic performance) waiting patiently for her social security check so she could fill her meager cupboards with Cup-O-Soup. You see, she sends over half of it to help put her great-granddaughter through the University where she is studying to be a medical doctor, aimed at helping tribes in disease-ridden Africa. I play the evil protagonist, only concerned about getting a haircut. Too busy, too self-absorbed to stop and alert the postman, the mail is confiscated by some hoodlum who cashes her check and uses the money to buy spray paint and graffitti the city.

I stepped on the gas, switched lanes, circled the blocks, guessed at where the postman might be and proceeded to park by the red-painted NO PARKING curbside. I jumped out of the car and ran to where I thought the mail was. The small trail of envelopes lay strewn across the sidewalk. I retrieved them then ran up to the next block and did one of my famous mega-loud whistles to get his attention.

“Oh my gosh, thank you!” he said apologetically taking the escaped mail.

I waved and ran back to my car, the voice quieted and my heart feeling good.

“Sometimes, rules are made to be broken,” I thought.

If we always followed the rules, then we would still live in a society where the earth was considered the center of the Universe, slavery was acceptable and women expected to be subservient. There were always those who “shook things up” by listening to an inner urging or intuitive knowing and challenging the status quo.

Picking up dropped mail was probably not going to change the world but it might make a significant difference to one person. How many times had I foregone listening to my intuition thinking that the act would be too insignificant? I’m glad that I listened to that voice for it was as if it knew there would be enough time to help out. Yes, I was late but so was the customer before me, creating a delay in my appoinment time. Once again I understood how our internal intuition can sometimes create the appearance of external compromise. But trusting that internal nudging has always led me to a more joyous outcome that my human, rational mind was not able to conceive.

Time and how we use it, is indeed an extraordinary gift but my interpretation of that gift was altered again that valuable morning.