The other day my morning seemed to be uneventful.  I got up on time, went for a quick 4 miles and came in to make breakfast and coffee.  In fact, I was cruising along until I stopped paying attention and grabbed a fork I’d left in a hot pan, where I was scrambling eggs.  Result: A few sizzled fingers (no fingerprinting for me this week!), a few choice words and some ice.  Then, as we got ready to leave I dropped and broke a glass.  I was so engrossed in a conversation and again wasn’t paying attention (plus my fingers hurt like h***!).

On my way to work, there was a lot of traffic.  As I tried to merge into a lane a pick-up cut in front of me.  I quickly veered to the left (trying to avoid him).  He must have thought I trying to go around him and he started flipping me off.  Then, he stopped his car in the middle of the ramp, opened his door to get out and I could hear him say, “I’m going to f*** you up.”  I could see a problem on my hands.  Thankfully, some other idiot started honking his horn.  “My guy” got back into his car and the two started a game of chicken on Hwy 100.  I looked at the clock – it was only 8:32 a.m.

The day continued like this: I broke a heel on my shoe, my hem came out of my skirt, I twice tripped walking downtown and spilled on my clothes as I was making dinner.  Some days just suck.

When it was time to finally close out the disaster-day, I wondered out loud – what should one do when such an insane day arises?  Here’s what my friend said:

We don’t have control over most things that happen to us and around us.  However, we can control how we react to these moments and days where life just seems to push back really, really hard.

Do we react with intense emotion and frustration (usually) and then carry that negative juju with us all day long (yup).  Do we let it muck up everything else that day? Or, do we just accept the reality, recognizing that it is what it is and that there’s nothing that we can do to change what happened so why allow it to doom the rest of our day to disaster?

His suggestion: when you have a bad day like that, practice a random act of kindness. No agenda. No expectation. No requirement that it changes your day.  Because if it does, you’ll be so thankful.  And if it doesn’t, you’ll at least feel good about making someone else’s day better.

One of these days I’m likely to have another wacky day. But this time I’m going to make a point of stepping outside myself and not letting it infiltrate everything.  Maybe, if it’s really bad, it’ll be a two-random-acts-of-kindness-kind-of-day!

Welcome to a wonderful Wednesday!