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A Trying Tuesday
Nov. 2nd, 2021 08:31 pmYou know those days where everything goes wrong and it could so easily bring you really down if you weren’t careful? It’s been one of those – but I made a conscious effort to pause and take a couple of deep breathes, to think before I responded rather than just reacting and I’ve been really pleased with the difference it made.
I had two different meetings today, lasting over 3 hours in total. I didn’t need to even be in one of them and I was expecting them to be difficult. They were, but they weren’t as awful as they could have been. Rather than lamenting the time I could have been doing my job and that it would put me behind my own self-imposed schedule, I looked at it as time spent engaging with colleagues I don’t speak to very often and came away from the meetings with my viewpoints heard, I was better informed and had a better understanding of some issues that are affecting the department as a whole. I even received a thank you email from A, so it wasn’t a completely wasted afternoon.
It then started to rain on my commute home, and I didn’t have an umbrella. I walk half a mile from the bus stop to my flat and wasn’t looking forward to getting cold and wet. But my mindset was changed by watching a toddler in wellies jumping in puddles and giggling while he did so. I had a mad moment and also did the same – and that little boy was right, it was a lot of fun. I walked home, jumping in puddles, dancing in the rain and laughing. After all, rain only goes as far as your skin and my flat had warm, dry, clothing waiting for me.
It’s amazing how simply changing how you react to same can change your entire emotional state. It makes sense and it’s nowhere near as easy as just that, but it’s definitely something worth remembering
I had two different meetings today, lasting over 3 hours in total. I didn’t need to even be in one of them and I was expecting them to be difficult. They were, but they weren’t as awful as they could have been. Rather than lamenting the time I could have been doing my job and that it would put me behind my own self-imposed schedule, I looked at it as time spent engaging with colleagues I don’t speak to very often and came away from the meetings with my viewpoints heard, I was better informed and had a better understanding of some issues that are affecting the department as a whole. I even received a thank you email from A, so it wasn’t a completely wasted afternoon.
It then started to rain on my commute home, and I didn’t have an umbrella. I walk half a mile from the bus stop to my flat and wasn’t looking forward to getting cold and wet. But my mindset was changed by watching a toddler in wellies jumping in puddles and giggling while he did so. I had a mad moment and also did the same – and that little boy was right, it was a lot of fun. I walked home, jumping in puddles, dancing in the rain and laughing. After all, rain only goes as far as your skin and my flat had warm, dry, clothing waiting for me.
It’s amazing how simply changing how you react to same can change your entire emotional state. It makes sense and it’s nowhere near as easy as just that, but it’s definitely something worth remembering
