Expect the Unexpected

How to Prepare for What Life Throws Your Way

Last week sucked. It like roooooyally sucked. On Tuesday, I experienced a pretty personal disappointment in something that I’d really been looking forward to. On Wednesday, I made a mistake at work that felt like the end of the world. On Friday, I got a flat tire and bent rim, which costs like five hundred bucks to fix. So, picking up my head to walk outside when I was feeling like a calamity was pretty yuck. But, even during the runaway train that my life felt like, I was building resiliency and badassery to continue on and stop the cyclical of bad luck from continuing. While today sucked, tomorrow is going to be better. Here’s how. 

Nothing puts life into perspective like sitting in your busted car, waiting for a tow truck to pick you up from a park parking lot where families are walking by and asking if you’re okay, but you’re crying in the driver’s seat of your busted car. You can’t get anywhere, you didn’t bring any work with you, and you’ve got nothing to do on your phone because you need to save battery for when the tow truck person calls--but he’s already called you twice and he’s gonne be another two hours. So, you do what any normal person does and grab the nearest pack of post-it notes and start learning how to fold paper cranes. 

Origami, or the Japanese art of “ori” meaning to fold and “kami”, meaning paper was originally a ceremonial practice typically reserved for the wealthy. In Japan, the crane, an animal believed to live for thousands of years, represents good fortune and longevity. Some believe that it is the “bird of happiness”, because its wings were powerful enough to carry souls up to heaven. 

Sitting in a parking lot with very little hope or happiness, the crane seemed to do just the trick. Folding a little bit of happiness into the situation where there was quite literally nothing else to do, but wait for a solution to drive to me and pull my sad state of a car onto its back, I had either the choice to wait and be upset at the situation, or to actively fight my emotions to put a smile back onto my face for when my knight in shining armor--a guy in a sweaty gray t-shirt who had a pretty bad cut on his arm from the last job--came to give me a ride. 

While you’re sitting there feeling sorry for how the accident happened or how this week has just gone wrong, you realize that there really is nothing to do, but regroup and attempt to make a plan in the huddle on how you’re going to save the game that is this week. Personally, I hate being told to slow down, but when something really bad happens, like you getting yelled at by someone else, or you’re rushing so pop a tire, I think it’s a costly red alarm saying slow down, you might get hurt. And, in some cases, when you’re waiting four hours for a tow truck to arrive, that’s the perfect time to set up shop to consider what’s going on. 

Most of the time, I think life can just start going too fast. Whether it’s work, school, life, or a combination of all three, an incident like a flat tire can just put into perspective how little any of that matters if you’re not okay. 

So, let’s think about this. Those bad things that have been happening--are they who you are truly deep down inside? Now, you might be feeling like oh-I made this mistake, so I really must not be conscientious, or oh, I’m not good enough because blah blah blah. Those are thoughts. I’m talking, in the person who you are, are you really anything of those thoughts or mistake? No, you’re not. You’re a person who made some mistakes and currently has to live with the consequences, but the attitude with which you work to ameliorate that situation is who you are. 

When the tow truck driver arrived to my scene, he and I both knew exactly how I’d ruined my poor little tire. I’d made a mistake because I’d been going too fast, not by speed, but in life and not paying attention. I was heading for a break down and this was it. But at the same time, my ownership of my mistake and my humor to make him feel comfortable in that situation were the grace that I was going to save for myself. 

The best thing that you can do once you’ve made a mistake is take ownership of it. Ownership of our errors is not just apology and correction, but an entire mindset change to make the best of something bad that has happened either to us or because of us. For me, taking my busted tire as a sign of slowing down and recognition of what truly matters was the attitude change that allowed me to contact the AAA towing company, sit down at the dealership and come up with a plan and financial cost spreading to help me cover the tire. 

These actions are what allow you to weather a storm. Each time something bad happens to you, you’re going to need to get through it, but treating it positively is going to be the difference that builds resiliency. I guarantee that you’re going to be going too fast and letting life dance away from you again, but at that crossroads of an accident or mistake, are you going to let it take control, or are you going to reason with the fact that it’s one day in a life of four thousand, straighten up and be the resilient person that you want to be on any other given day? 

Even before you end up in a situation like mine, it can be pretty clear that you’re heading that direction. Pump some brakes: Call your mentor and say “hey, I don’t think that my life should be going this way, what’s your advice?”. Pull out that journal and write down every single thing that seems to be running away from you. Prioritize what you can and get to work at making yourself feel better. Notice that in times of such high stress, you’ve got a tendency to make impaired decisions--drive more slowly, arrive late, or let them know you’ll be slower. It’s so much better to take the anxiety as a tool rather than the symptom of a mistake that could cost more than just you. 

And if you do end up making that mistake, let yourself be sad, but then remember who tf you are. You can do anything. Expect that bad things are going to happen to you, because they will. But in that expectation, hold yourself to a higher standard to treat them as just one more problem that’s going to improve who you are. Because at the end of the day, that’s all these problems are: solutions to help you grow. Life moving too fast is just feeling that way because you’re not in front of it. Take the stop as the opportunity to swing ahead of the train and stop it in its tracks.