The last few days have had all the ingredients needed for me to have a bad attitude. Yesterday, a technician from Sony came out to my home to repair my laptop – for the second time. You techies out there will appreciate that a new mother board and a new operating system means that all data has to be transferred to another drive, all settings are lost and all the software will need to be reloaded.
This morning, I went to leave for the gym and, as the weather service predicted, freezing rain last night. No big deal, I will just put the truck in four wheel drive and carefully head off my morning racquetball game. Not so fast my friend. For some reason, the four wheel drive won’t engage. Unsuccessfully messed around with that for a little while and then back into the house.
I have an important event I am supposed to be at in two hours and at this point in time, I don’t know if I will make it or not. I have a meeting I am facilitating five hours from now. I hope I make that.
On top of all that, I knew that I needed to get a blog post out today. It’s kinda funny how things work sometimes. Last night I was trying to think of a good topic to write on. I have kind of wore out the holiday and end of the year stuff and needed something fresh. I am pretty sure someone once said “Be careful what you ask for.”
OK, so let’s look at what is going on here. Being totally transparent, these events a few years ago probably would have ruined my day. But not now. I have decided that I am going to be a person that happens to life and not just one who lets life happen to me. Let me ask you the question:
Are you a person who happens to life or a person that life happens to?
There is a big difference. If you are a person that life happens to, you simply wait for things to happen. Maybe you hope they are good things and not bad things, but basically you are just waiting to see what life throws at you in the hopes that you can deal with it.
On the other hand, maybe you are one of those people that happens to life. You realize that there will be ups sand downs but know that if you can make something happen before life has an opportunity to throw something at you, you might just have better results.
The more I have considered these two types of people, the more I have aligned myself with the proactive ones. It just plain seems that better things happen when I am around them.
As for my problems … I am blessed that my youngest son Spencer, knows all about the computer stuff and it just so happens that he is home on Christmas break right now and is helping me put things back in order. I should also be thankful that my computer is still under warranty.
If I miss the event or the meeting, the world will not end and I guess my weekend will start early (that’s never bad.) My guess is that the truck issue is something simple that I will have fixed before I need four-wheel drive again. I am thankful I have a truck.
What it really comes down to is that I could have chosen to let life happen to me today, but instead I think I will happen to it. How high will you fly today?
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Barry Smith www.buildingwhatmatters.com 1/4/13 photo by author
