Rollin’ with the punches…
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Are you the type of person who can roll with the punches? or are you the sort that freezes up with a plan goes awry?
I’m not sure if I’m a roll with the punches sort by nature but I’ve had to learn the skill over the years and I’m getting pretty darned good at it.
In fact, if there’s one thing I can count on in my life, it’s that whatever plans I make will somehow get turned upside down by some person or some event.
I could blame the world for this. I could blame the people, the events, the circumstances. I could shut down, curl into a ball, and say I don’t wanna play any more. To be honest I do shut down, curl into a ball and say I don’t wanna play any more - but only for a day or two and then I have to stand up, dust myself off and start marching forward again.
It comes down to choices. When something doesn’t go your way you still have choices. You can choose to quit. You can choose to fight. You can choose to run. You can choose to blame. You can choose to shake your tiny fist at fate. You can choose to move forward. You can choose to learn. You can choose to be angry. You can choose to be defeated. You can choose to put it behind you and start fresh.
No matter how bad things look and how dire the situation seems you can still choose how you will react to things. You can choose what Plan B or C or Z will be. You can choose to be positive or negative. You always have the choice.
I am definitely learning to be more of a roll with the punches type of gal. In the past, I have spent more time, more energy, freaking out when things didn’t go according to a plan. Now, I spend less energy planning everything out to a minute detail, and more on examining all the options, so that when something doesn’t go right the first time, nearly a beat gets missed in transition to the next option.
As my friend and former coworker, Tom, said to me one day when we were in the heat of the battle and NOTHING was going right, “You just gotta become a duck. Let it roll of your back and take it in stride.”
Quack!
I’ve always found that there’s no such thing as a wrong decision - you just have to be resourceful enough, creative enough, confident enough, to play the cards that end up in your hand. There’s always another option - pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again.
Nice post, Merlene!