The other day my car was towed. I’d parked it on a street with restricted parking and completely forgot I was supposed to move it before I went to bed that night.
The next morning, hubby – who had just walked out the door to go Christmas shopping – came bursting back in, exclaiming that the car was gone: “Where did you park?”
I thought about it for about half a second, and remembered… On the street with the restricted parking. Ouch. The car had been towed!
To make a long story short, within a few hours we had the car back.
Sam went to go get it, and it cost us a hefty $420. (Ouch again.)
However…and this is my whole point of sharing this with you.
I could have spent the rest of the day (or week) kicking myself over all this…I could have blamed my husband even, (and causing a fight,) however unreasonable that would have been…I could have allowed it to bring me down….to make me angry, bitter, mad at the city of Los Angeles for incorporating such stupid street regulations.
But I chose not to.
I chose to look at it as something good instead. Namely a lesson in gratitude.
First of all, instead of just getting towed, the car COULD HAVE BEEN stolen, and that of course would have been a whole different ball game.
Secondly, I didn’t have to lift a finger to get it back: Sam took care of everything while I got to stay home. Which reminded me how blessed I am to have a husband like him —
It COULD HAVE BEEN me that had to go get the car – after all it was my fault. But Sam’s choice to take care of things for me gave me yet another thing to be thankful for.
Thirdly, IF THIS HAD HAPPENED just 3 years ago, $420 would have been about 25% of our monthly income, and this unforeseen expense would have had much more significant repercussions – such as likely not being able to buy Christmas presents for everyone on our list.
Thankfully, it happened now, not back then.
Those were only three reasons that immediately came to mind as to why I had reason to be thankful in the midst of the calamity.
I think you get the point.
The point is that you choose how you react to everything that transpires around you, in your life.
Our circumstances are just that… Circumstances. We decide how to read them, and react to them.
I believe you can take any “bad” incident and turn it into something good. Yes, I firmly believe that all of us have the ability to do so.
When you lose your hard-earned money or an investment due to an unwise business decision…when your house has been on the market for over a year and absolutely no offers are coming in…when the biggest team builder in your organization jumps ships, taking half your downline with them…when your computer crashes, causing you to lose weeks worth of work.
Those are the types of things I’m talking about.
Am I saying it’s easy? No.
But one thing I know, and I know this from personal experience: We CAN train ourselves to interpret, and react to, our circumstances positively rather than succumb to our natural tendency to do otherwise.
Until, after a while, this new way of thinking and reacting actually becomes our default mechanism.
Recouping a towed car can go from being a nuisance and an unwelcome unnecessary expense to becoming a lesson in gratitude.
If that’s how you choose to look at it.
Successfully,
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This entry was posted on Friday, December 17th, 2010 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Mindset, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Attitude of Gratitude….I love it!
I totally agree with you lena. I also believe that life is all about perspective…and we ourselves get to chose how we look at each and everything….from small to huge things.
Thanks for sharing such an inspiring story!
Have an awesome weekend, Cheers ~ B