“They’ve added footprints.”
We were standing near the counter,
waiting for our Americanos.
My daughter pointed toward the yellow waiting line
near the bakery section.
Small footprints had been added to the floor.
A message now showed customers
exactly where to wait.
“Maybe people don’t notice the signs very well.”
She looked toward the waiting line.
I smiled.
“You’re right,” I said.
“Last time, one man stood there first.
Then everyone lined up behind him.
Seeing the footprints now,
maybe that only happened
on the days we were there.”
For a month,
I had spent several mornings
watching how people lined up in that café.
The yellow waiting line
was already there.
The signs were already there too.
But many customers
didn’t seem to notice them.
Instead,
they looked at the people
standing near the counter.
Then they simply joined the line
behind them.
Now the café had added footprints.
And a message on the floor.
A small adjustment.
A small signal.
Then my daughter turned to me.
“By the way,
what do you mean by tuning?”
She had read one of my posts
the day before.
The question made me smile.
Because the footprints she had just noticed
were part of the answer.
Tuning Isn’t a Bad Thing
I looked at my daughter and said,
“You remember tuning your cello, right?”
She nodded.
At first, she had watched
her teacher tune the instrument
before lessons.
Later, she tuned it herself.
If one string was slightly off,
the whole instrument sounded different.
Not wrong.
Just slightly out of tune.
“Tuning is a little like that,” I said.
“We adjust ourselves all the time.”
To other people.
To noise.
To expectations.
To the mood in a room.
Sometimes we do it
without even noticing.
Tuning itself is not the problem.
The Problem Starts When We Forget Ourselves
The problem begins
when tuning becomes automatic.
When we stop noticing it.
When we become so busy adjusting
that we lose track of
how we actually feel.
I spent many years doing this.
As a journalist,
I interviewed people
from all kinds of backgrounds.
As a teacher, I adjusted
to students, parents, and classrooms.
Without realizing it,
I became very good at reading people.
Very good at adapting.
Very good at fitting into
different situations.
But there was one thing
I wasn’t always good at.
Returning to myself.
Mid-point
Sometimes we become so skilled
at adjusting to others
that we forget to check our own settings.
Tuning Happens Everywhere
The more I pay attention,
the more I see it.
A driver stops,
and the next driver follows.
The music in a café changes,
and the whole room becomes quieter.
A sign is moved,
and people suddenly stand in line.
Most of the time,
people aren’t making conscious decisions.
They’re simply responding to
what they see,
hear,
and feel around them.
I do it too.
Everyone does.
The interesting part is not
whether tuning happens.
The interesting part is
noticing it.
Returning to Yourself
Then I thought about the cello again.
A cello needs tuning.
But the purpose of tuning isn’t tuning itself.
The purpose is music.
Once the instrument is tuned,
the musician stops turning the pegs.
The music begins.
Life may be similar.
We all need some tuning from time to time.
We adjust.
We adapt.
We respond.
But if we spend all our time adjusting,
we never actually play.
The goal isn’t to stop tuning.
The goal is to remember
how to return.
To return to our own rhythm.
Our own voice.
Our own sound.
Mid-point
A tuned instrument doesn’t spend its life
being tuned.
It plays.
Closing Thoughts
My daughter listened quietly.
Then she nodded.
“Ah.”
That was all she said.
But I could tell something had clicked.
Tuning isn’t a problem to solve.
It’s simply something to notice.
Because once we notice it,
we no longer move automatically.
We can continue following
everything around us.
Or we can pause for a moment,
and come back to ourselves.
Sometimes,
that’s the reset.
