Yesterday I happened to be stuck in traffic on the M6. I was hot, I was hungry and I was moving at about 3 miles an hour. Plenty of reason to be peeved, eh? But then I looked across at a very angry chap in the outside lane who practically had steam coming out of his ears. He was obviously having a terrible time, and here’s the thing: we couldn’t change it. Being pissed off was not going to make it any easier (quite the opposite in fact), or get rid of the jam any faster. In his case, I suspect it took him closer to a coronary.
In my case, seeing his misery and anger jolted me out of my own irritation. I thought to myself “Right, I’m here. There’s nothing I can do about it, no helicopter is going to rescue me, so let’s make the most of this shall we?” I rolled down the windows, beamed at the blue sky and lovely hot sun, turned up the music and started to car dance. I like to think I cheered some people up – they were laughing at me anyway. I certainly had more fun than if I’d sat there fuming. And then I intensified the game, upped the ante, compounded the enjoyment.
How? I cheered wildly everytime I got into 3rd gear (twice). I beamed at the lovely sky, grinned at other cars, told myself I was in the fastest lane (and a lot of the time, I was – I went past the cross man 17 times), found things to appreciate, danced more and more, sang a little (I do have a bit of a sense of shame!), thanked God that my car doesn’t overheat, and thoroughly enjoyed myself in every way I could think of. And then, when I went past the police cars and ambulance I had a rampage of appreciation that I was safe and well.
Because those people in that car were having a way worse time than we were. I’d take stuck in a traffic jam over an appointment with Casualty any day. The moral of this story of course is that sometimes things happen that are not great, sometimes we’re stuck in a situation we don’t want to be in, but we have a choice as to how we deal with that. We can sit and fume, OR we can make it fun. And do you know what? In a bizarre way, I really enjoyed that trip home. Not so much that I’d want to do it again today, but ooh, that was fun!
Love
Donna.x