Stay Positive, Stay Classy
Ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go right? I get them every now and then but have found a way to manage them which always seem to leave me "evened out" in the end.
You see, I have an excellent memory, always have. So much so, that I'm the historian of the family, and if I tell someone that they chipped a tooth falling down the stairs when they were 9 (and not 10), then they bloody well did! :)
It's not that I have a photographic memory or anything, it's just that my sense of empathy and compassion causes things to occupy one of the thousands of little rooms in my brain that I can open or close at will. So while I don't dwell on things too often, they're right there sitting in that mental safe deposit box, at the ready if they ever need to be recalled.
And what that does, is have the long-term effect of allowing me to compare the current trials against lessons from the past. This allows me to keep things in their proper perspective, as when Steve Jobs once said that you can't connect the dots in life looking forward, you can only connect them when looking back.
The Happy Circumstances of "Even-ing Out"
I've had a lot of drama in my life as we've all had, but you know what? Like that Seinfeld episode Even Steven, where the pendulum always swings back for Jerry, I too, always seem to "even out."
It took until I was in my late teens in order to realize this. Something bad would happen to me and that would be a bummer, but that almost always had the effect of preventing something far worse from happening, often leaving me either neutral or even better off than I was before!
When sthings like that happen often enough, you develop a sense of inner calm, and an acceptance that whatever I'm going through now, I trust that it's for the best, and that things will "even out" in the end.
Years ago on these very pages, I shared how a sense of precognition, caused me to remain on the hot, sunny side of the street, just as an accident occurred on the shady side in which someone died.
I'd planned to cross on over to get out of the Sun, but at that moment, a sense of foreboding came over me. Had I not listened to that inner voice, a whisper of faint intuition, I'd have been directly center at the intersection when a packed passenger van slammed into the rear of a vehicle.
That feeling came to me in the nick of time...
How, getting robbed when I was in Germany in 2017, caused me to leave the building I'd lived in, where 2 years later, mass infection spread, causing many of the residents to die during the pandemic. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.
So now when I'm "going through it" I remain calm, and just know that whatever the current difficulties, everything will eventually work out, because in life, everything happens for a reason.
Stay Positive, Stay Classy
So I try to keep a balanced view of throughout my life. This is why I can be serene in so many challenging circumstances. People here say I have a lot of class, but that comes from dealing with a lot of pain and escaping largely intact, by listening to that sixth sense, that inner voice.
No matter what you're going through, there's no use engaging in excessive complaining and hand-wringing. Get to work about getting out of that situation, and if you can't, just remember, it could always be worse.
That quote from Winston Churchill comes in handy at just the right times: "If you're going through Hell, keep going."
In my life, bad things seem to act as a barrier preventing even worse things from occurring. So over time, you can bet I've taken note.
I always keep in mind those people that had something happen, which placed them at the right place at the right time on the morning of 9/11. That temporary inconvenience of being stuck in traffic or missing their plane ended up saving their lives on that fateful day.
Things like that will lead you to develop a sense of situational awareness that may save your bacon at just the right time.
Hopefully, you'll never need to use it.
While staying positive, never assume that everything will always go according to plan and you'll never be disappointed. I tend to manage expectations to keep everything in check. I'd rather dial things down just a bit, and then be happily surprised in the end.
No matter what you're going through, always stay positive and stay classy. You'll calm those around you and inspire them to join together to find a solution to the problem at hand. And in the end, you too, just might "even out." :)
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