“Nothing is going right for you this month,” a friend said to me recently as I recounted yet another saga of what seemed like a streak of bad luck run amok in my world.
I’m not one known to complain, but this past month I found myself talking a lot about the puzzling events that had pieced themselves together to taunt the positive out of my thinking.
It all began the day two of my childhood icons died. Early that morning, Farrah Fawcett passed away. She had been ill, so her death was not quite unexpected. But when later that very same day the Tabloid Thriller upstaged Charlie’s Angel into the afterlife, the final curtain fell on one of the most vivid memories of my elementary school years.
Regardless of your opinion of either Farrah or Michael Jackson, they were a part of an innocent past, long before news networks had to use scandal to fill their 24 hours. And when they died, a part of that innocence went with them.
Sometime during the 24/7 coverage of the aftermath of Jackson’s death, my Tivo, which has worked perfectly for years, decided it no longer wanted to be a witness to the Michael madness. No matter what I tried, it soon became clear that the DVR was dead and would have to be replaced.
And then in the middle of one night that week, we had to rush my dad to the emergency room. Six hours and a diagnosis of kidney stones later, I stumbled into bed, having pulled my first all-nighter since college.
And then, after days of trying to figure out why my iPod wouldn’t turn on, it magically turned itself on only to stay on — all the time.
And then, a week after she had successful laser surgery for glaucoma, the cataract in my mom’s right eye seemed to grow overnight and had to be removed.
And then, my dog got depressed. One day she was a happy dachshund diva and the next she began channeling Droopy the cartoon dog.
And then, my touchscreen cell phone decided it no longer wanted to be touched. To reject my advances, it would log onto the internet and make random calls every time I picked it up.
All of this was happening while I was working double shifts to cover for a vacationing colleague. Of course, that was the week Walter Cronkite — the jounalist who inspired my career choice — died.
But despite the chaos on the outside, on the inside I was calm.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned at the halfway point in life is that when things seem to be going very wrong, breakthroughs are just around the corner.
Nothing is good or bad. It’s our judgement of a situation that makes it so. Embrace change, learn the lesson and move on.
If you worry, stress or freak out, the external noise will be so loud, you won’t hear the voice of inspiration that is there to lead you into the calm.
Inspiration is whispering out loud. It’s up to you to shut up and listen.
Trading Barbs With Barb 