Surprises

When events occur that you didn’t anticipate, how do you react? Do you take it as an opportunity to celebrate a chance to learn something or do you mope that “this isn’t what I wanted”? I would love to say ” I always try to learn from the unexpected” but I don’t  Yesterday I move my website domain or really just pointed to a different DNS and was surprised (read pissed) that my email became inaccessible. I thought ” how was I supposed to know this would happen?” but it was totally my bad. As is common for big picture people, I didn’t read all of the fine detail and follow all the instructions completely. I did get to learn this morning when I needed to reach out to customer support from two different providers and try coordinate their joint effort to restore the account. If I had been more detail oriented I would have anticipated the issue and taken a different tact to accomplish the same thing. So even when I was annoyed yesterday by the ‘unexpected’ I did gain some knowledge about ISPs and domain transfers and some insight into myself.

I realized that I am perfectly okay with unexpected if it is outside the span of my control; a fallen tree across my path on a run, a rainbow when the sun is shining brightly, a smile from a stranger, a problem that needs solving. When I feel like I had/have/should have a measure of control, I feel frustration and defensive. How much control do I need to feel I can relinquish before the anxiety washes away? Probably way more than I am willing to acknowledge.

For the rest of the day I am going to (maybe you will join me) allow surprises to creep up on me and keep my hands and mind open do that my grip on the control lever is ever so light.

Make Today Remarkable, by relinquishing,
B