What happens when you wake up and you are thrown a "curve ball"? What do you do? If you are like most people here on planet earth, you have a knee jerk reaction and immediately go into a panic about all the things that are going to go wrong with the next period of time that this curve ball is in your hands. Right? You may not stop to think how this "ball" is actually going to impact the decisions that you will make over the next several hours. Let’s talk about our options here, shall we? Yes, you and I both have many, many options we can and might want to stop and think about before we go into our fit over how we are going to be inconvenienced today.
Option #1: Have a complete melt down and let the "Curve Ball" take us for a ride and basically have a rotten day and a big pity party every time we are asked about our day and we think about the other things we need to do and so on. We come home fall into bed exhausted and mad and wonder what hit us!?
Option #2: Catch the "Curve Ball", evaluate it in light of its actual importance. Is it really a ball on fire and we must put it out, or is it a mere annoyance that we will need to deal with sometime today or even this week? See the ball for what it really is.
Option #3: See the "Curve Ball" as an opportunity to stretch the area in our lives where the ball impacts us. Perhaps, it’s your dry cleaners who lost a piece of clothing, perhaps it’s a baby sitter that you were counting on being about to sit your children that can’t make it, perhaps it is something else that really impacts you in another way. What can you learn in this situation? How deep is your list of suppliers? Can you inquire, make other plans, or just let go of the whole thing and not let it get to you at all?
Option #4: Catch the "Curve Ball" and put it into your day as if it were a daily occurrence. You are prepared for these curve balls and they no longer even sting when they hit your glove. Embrace them as part of your own process.
Recently, I had several of these curve balls coming at me like one of those ball machines that spits them out so you can practice. My "Curve Balls" not only affected me, my family, our summer calendar and also several of the guests who are coming to visit. I evaluated the balls in terms of my "bigger picture" and took the appropriate actions for the support of my spouse, children, guests, calendar and life here in our home.
Yes, there were things that were stalled for a short time. I will bring those items in as time permits and I consider the balls part of my personal growth in terms of the big picture.
