I would swear I just had a post with this title but a quick review shows that it wasn’t in the last month. So I think I am safe. 🙂
I am having a discombobulated morning. Nothing major has gone off the rails, but everything I have tried to do has hit a minor stumbling block. Running in to work to grab a few things for the weekend, and finding that I didn’t have something I thought I did. Forgetting to put water in the coffee maker. Being unable to install my really ancient printer on my new work laptop (which means that I cannot print at home… not the end of the world, but still…). My Outlook app not showing my many subfolders (phone app, to be clear). And, etc.
I have meetings all day, and had hoped to get a few things checked off my list before the first one at 0730. Now I’m hoping for checking one thing off.
But! Yesterday, James Clear’s 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter was a treasure trove of quotable material. I’m going to share one that I need to keep in mind at all times (and it harkens back to Engie’s mantra “of things”…):
You are not the cause of everything that happens to you, but you are responsible for how you respond to everything that happens to you. ~James Clear
I know this, I really do. But sometimes I want to rail against the universe, and I need to remember this when that happens. Because, despite my best efforts, railing against the universe has not actually done anything.
Happy Friday, and happy end-of-NaBloPoMo to the intrepid bloggers who made it through! I hope you have a weekend that strikes the balance you need to feel your best.
Yesterday, my husband got to work and realized he had forgotten something at home (it was a food item that he eats at lunch and keeps a stock of it in his office). Since I had driven yesterday, he came to my office to get the car key, and he drove home only to get 75% of the way there and realize he had forgotten his HOUSE key in his school office, so he turned around and came back to work and he was seriously grumpy about this fiasco all day. And then he didn’t have what he needed for a complete lunch. I reminded him “of things” and he was so hilarious with the “I was perfectly in control of remembering the damn keys” response and I just laughed and laughed. I mean, if you can’t laugh at the little things…
Oh, absolutely. I know I have had days like Dr. BB’s Thursday, and often (as there is no one else around), I will say to myself, “Seriously? You have GOT to be kidding me.” 🙂
Do you ever fly out of the Milwaukee General Mitchell airport? There are these great signs right after the security checkpoints that say “Recombobulation Area”, and they have various chairs, etc. where people can stop to refasten their belts or put their shoes back on. It always makes me laugh because it’s just a funny word! Both of them, really- “discombobulated” and “recombobulation”. It feels like an onomatopoeia almost… just saying it out loud captures the feeling of the word. 🙂 I hope you get recombobulated today. 🙂
I love that sign! I want to take a picture of it, but TSA, federal security, etc. etc. It is totally onomatopoeia – love that word. And while I didn’t get recombobulated, I at least accepted my non-productive discombobulated status and logged off earlier than usual. 🙂
Those times when I think I’ve started the coffee maker and I haven’t…it chills me to the bone. And those times when I need to do anything more advanced than reading an email in the Outlook app on my phone…hard times folks. Hard times.
The worst is when you think caffeine will be ready shortly and… no. Or, worse? When you start it and somehow manage to get coffee grounds IN the coffee (that happened yesterday, too) OR (if you’re my mother) you take the pot out while the coffee is still brewing. NB: that creates a mess. 😉
Oh, not reacting to things that are out of one’s control is so hard… but really, “of things”. Still doesn’t help sometimes to not feel grumpy about the whole damn day.
I can recognize that I can only control how I respond, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Sometimes you really just wish you could change the situation. Sigh.