On the days when everything goes wrong smile and laugh at the absurdity. We all have those terrible days where everything just goes wrong. How you handle these days and the things that make them feel so horrible can change the experience entirely.
Today was one of those days for me. I prepped a house between renters. The house is nearly two hours away. I thought I was ready. The day before I made a list of everything that needed to be done and gathered all the supplies that would be necessary for the cleaning and repairs. Just before getting into the car I checked that the keys were on my key ring.
Not a great start.
I arrive at the house and unlock the first door. Neither key fit. It turns out I looked too quickly at my keys and mistakenly thought my office keys were the house keys. I swore a few times and got upset with myself. It was nearly a two-hour drive. The renters were coming the next morning. I had not planned for an additional 4 hours of driving when I worked out all my lists. My mood quickly shifted to mortified and then bounced over to shame. I did not want to have to tell the boss that I had messed up so badly.
Once I got hold of those runaway shame thoughts, I remembered that a neighbor had a spare set. All was good- I was able to get in the house with only thirty minutes delay.
The problems continued to mount.
Then, I couldn’t start the washing machine so that took time to try and get going. I still do not know wtf was wrong with it. But eventually, I had washed and dried everything. The vacuum turned on but didn’t vacuum. The tools I thought I needed to repair a porch door weren’t complete, needed a hammer too. I forgot trash bags.
Staying in control.
This day could have easily been a nightmare and two years ago I most likely would have been stuck on the “I’m a failure” train and really turned the day into a mess. Practice and an awareness of these moments have given me the ability to laugh. Not instantly, I still get frustrated at first. But now I don’t allow those thoughts to control my reaction. Finding fixes and solutions is also much easier when anger and annoyance aren’t running the show. Everything turned out well, in case you were wondering, and I had a lot of good laughs at just how wrong everything went.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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