When you least expect it, life throws you a curveball. Without getting into tedious detail, suffice it to say we’ve been dealing with an unexpected emergency this past week, which is why you may have noticed that Undecided went dark.
But we’ll be back as usual sooner rather than later, when all is well, with a little wisdom to spare: Which is the fact that when shit happens, you tend to realize that all the little things you’ve been obsessing about, in the great scheme of things, weren’t necessarily worth the angst. As one wise friend once said, “Why worry? When the bad stuff happens, it’s never what you were worrying about.”
What you also learn is that, well, it’s not always about you. We angst and angst and take our plans so seriously, without ever acknowledging that life doesn’t have much interest in our plans at all. And in fact, the choices we think we have — may not actually even be choices afterall. What really matters is whether or not you step up to the plate.
What you realize is that you can. In the unforgettable words of Christopher Robin to Pooh (Thanks, Leslie!): “Promise me you’ll always remember: you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
Truth. I’m sure you have your own stories of resilience. We’d like to hear them. Meanwhile, catch you next week, when many of us will be making a pilgrimage to the last-minute land of the Undecided, staggering around the shopping mall with the twenty-yard stare, wondering, “Hmmmm. Would she like the red one? Or the blue one?”
Hope everything turns out well in the end. Isn’t that life though, going along your merry way and you are hit with the unexpected. Life really is about how you handle the adversities. Embrace the things you have control over and try not to let what you don’t have control over keep you up at night! Good luck!
I’ve always loved the story about the old Irishman on his deathbed, saying “My life was filled with troubles, most of which never happened.” And the evergreen wisdom from Elizabethtown: “If it wasn’t this, it’d be something else.”
We all spend too much time worrying about what could go wrong and, as you say, it’s usually not the thing we worry about that happens.