A note from Donna
Apologies for the late delivery of this week’s newsletter – you’ll understand when you read today’s article. I hope you will also understand that I am too shattered to put much of a note in this week!
Life Happens For You, Not To You
In one of those “couldn’t make it up” moments, the friend I was visiting and I went back to his apartment to pick up my suitcase to go to the airport…and couldn’t get in!! By the time the locksmith arrived, it was far too late to get my flight. Now you may think that an extra day in Barcelona is no hardship (and you would be right, I spent the next 24 hours either on the beach or in a restaurant – 2 of my favourite things!), but frankly it was a bit inconvenient!
Not only the one way flight which was twice the cost of my original return fare, but I had things to do, people to see and places to go (all of which I have had to pack into today…boy am I ready for a siesta!) But, we said, there must be a reason for this to happen. As it turned out, I came up with 5 reasons – the most important of which being that Saturday was windy, and as you know, I am a bit of a scaredy cat about flying – I wasn’t looking forward to being in a smarties tube in a gale!
Shit happens. On a fairly regular basis. And if you can get your head around the idea that life happens FOR you, not TO you, you will always be able to find a bright side (or at least trust that there is a bright side!) Ok, being forced to stay in Barcelona is not the worst thing that could happen to a person, but how would you have dealt with it? Would you have been worried about the cost, cross about the inconvenience and complaining? Or would you have consciously looked for that silver lining?
The time that I shouldn’t have been in Barcelona was actually the best of the time I spent there – maybe because I was searching for reasons that this was a good thing. And I found them, many of them. Each of those reasons were worth the cost and inconvenience (and from a business perspective, may turn out to be priceless!). I found it quite interesting that because I was actively seeking the silver lining, knowing that life is for me, I was aware of just how great it was to get an extra day!
Even when something not so good happens, you can train yourself to see it as a positive step, just by expecting every event to somehow bring good things to you. How often have you heard of stories where something ‘bad’ has happened, which turned out to be really good for the person it happened to? With just a little change of attitude, your life can start happening for you, not to you. Bring it on!
Something to play with
Look for the silver lining in every cloud. Start training yourself to see that life is happening for you.