Lessons from a stolen car

Last Friday morning, I woke up and went out jogging as every other morning. When I came back, I noticed that my car was no longer where I parked it on Thursday night. It was funny, I laughed as I began thinking about car-abducting aliens who had raptured my car. After making sure the car key was in my room and confirming with the car’s owner that nobody had come to legitimately take the car overnight, I called 911 to report the stolen vehicle. Note that the car is owned by a friend of mine, but was in my care.

Stolen Car
The recovered car as it I found it in the towing company’s yard.

The operators (lady) on the phone was very courteous and friendly, and she gave me the phone number of the Anaheim police to file my report with them. In about 30 minutes, two police officers showed up at my house, filed a report, and gave me my police case number. The report was filed before 9 a.m. and by 12 noon, I had a call to inform me that the stolen car was recovered and I could go pick it up. I picked up the car on Saturday morning and was excited about that happy ending of the case. As I thought about the experience last week-end, this is what I learned:

  • A positive attitude produces positive results. I had a good time with the police officers who came to take a report of the incident. We laughed and had a great friendly interaction. I was very positive that the car would be found. If not, I had already thought of the worst case scenarios and what to do if they were to occur. I was so positive they would not occur that they did not. But just in case, I was already prepared to deal with them.
  • [Some] Thieves do not value knowledge. If you are a thief reading this, then I am pretty sure you value knowledge. Thumbs up to you. I had the book “How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Personal Success” in my car and the thief did not take it away with him. If I was the thief, there is no way I would have left a book with such an attractive title. You would believe that someone who has to steal cars out of need would use advice in such a book. I was really disappointed in the thief leaving that book and if I could, I would find him just to give that book to him. It would still be up to him to read and apply the concepts in it.

Getting the car stolen was a great experience. Having it found and back within 24 hours was a miracle I am very grateful for. The forces of the universe are constantly working in my favor and I am humbled by how blessed I am. Have you had a similar experience with something you owned that was stolen? How did the story end for you? What did you learn? Tell us about it.