A little thing happened to me today that neatly characterizes my outlook on life, and how I am trying to change that outlook. I was walking into work, carrying my Palm organizer, my Dunkin' Donuts coffee, a bag with a plain cruller in it, and my car keys, which I hadn't put away yet because my hands were full with the other stuff. As I was juggling all of these goodies, I dropped the bag with the cruller in it onto the parking lot pavement.
I immediately thought "Damn! What a pain - I just dropped breakfast." But then a strange new thought occurred to me. Now that the cruller was out of my hands, it was quite easy to put the keys in my pocket, bend over and pick up the cruller, which was none the worse for wear. I had taken something which I would ordinarily perceive as a problem, and I had changed it into an opportunity to accomplish something useful. This also made it easier to open the door to my office building later.
To carry the analogy one step further, that simple problem of carrying so much stuff that I dropped some of it has created an opportunity to discuss changing my attitude about life's little misfortunes. My car failed inspection? - well, ultimately that will benefit me by forcing me to make my car safer. I have writer's block? - time to practice being less than perfect. Actually, I get to practice that a lot. Strangely, one of my personal goals for this series of articles (columns, stories, pages, whatever) is to become less of a perfectionist.
Well, that's my big insight for today - probably common sense for most of you, but hard won for me. Of course, talk is cheap. But at least I can consider this thought an opportunity to stop looking at life as a never ending series of insurmountable problems.
You can respond to my ranting here.
"I see", ranted the blind man to his deaf dog.