I was always a bit of a pessimist … but I’m still trying to be the optimist. Having a daughter and becoming a dad probably helps as well. I don’t know how I became the pessimist – maybe this is the part where you blame mom or dad, or genes, or some TV show I watched when I was 12 where they made being a negative, sarcastic, complainer seem really cool. But more like “Kool” as opposed to cool.
[*ed. note: Kool is what you call something that should be cool but actually isn’t]
So I have been trying not to waste time focusing on the concept of just “being positive” or JUST BEING an optimist, since if your a pessimist, that sounds really kind of stupid. You might as well tell me not to think of the stay-puff marshmallow man.
Instead I have been trying to focus on the things that drive me nuts or the things I instantly start beating myself up about. And then ask, could this bad thing actually be a good thing.
I left my Backpack at work on Monday night … on purpose, and then I was going to come back and grab it later. Of course I didn’t and totally forgot. So Tuesday morning rolls around, the kid has no school, the wife is sick and in bed, and I am clearly “working from home today [or at least this morning]” except how can you work from home WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE YOUR AWESOME BACKPACK?!
I don’t have my laptop, I don’t have my notebooks (they are all color coded), I don’t have anything. So after my morning routine I just take out a blank piece of paper and just start writing.
I write down all the things on my mind and all the things I want to get done that day. No structure or plan, just a blank sheet of paper. And it turns out to be one of the best and most productive days of the year.
Go figure.
A bad thing can end up being a good thing … if you let it.
I am reading a fitness book, as I sometimes do. It starts off well enough with some interesting ideas and principles, and then you realize that the authors are just kind of stalling. They keep repeating the same ideas and jokes over again. They keep saying “we are going to show you” and “we are going to tell you” except I am 3 and 4 and 5 hours into the book and they haven’t gotten to it yet. And I am like “crap … what a joke” this book is a total rip! And I don’t even have the interest to get to the last part where they supposedly make the big reveal, but probably don’t anyway …
Normally I would be racing to Amazon to write a well thought out, and negative and pessimistic review. And maybe they even deserved it. But then I think, well I was probably supposed to read this book right now.
Because believe it or not I am actually working on my own book … and its instructional and educational.
Its not about fitness at all, actually about officiating.
Go figure.
But I was meant to read that book, just to remind me what I don’t like, what I shouldn’t do, what really bugs me about certain instructional or educational books.
I was meant to read that book right now as I am finishing up my first draft. Even though it drove me nuts and it kind of stunk.
One of my favorite pictures of all time is of my brother and my mother and I sitting on a couch on the day of my wedding. We are all dressed in fancy clothes and suits. The picture is actually taken at the time when the wedding was supposed to be beginning, except I had messed up some instructions with the car that was supposed to bring my wife and the bridal party. And then on top of it a big baseball game was starting around the corner.
So instead of getting that whole wedding thing started, I got about 45 minutes straight of jokes that largely consisted of “Dude, maybe she changed her mind! Hahaha just kidding … but no seriously maybe she changed her mind!!”
No no no … I just messed up the times for the car to pick her up.
So there is my mom sitting on the couch holding my brothers hand and my hand in between us. I look like I have just eaten a 6 day old sandwich that I found laying in the street as I try and muster a smile.
My mom is beaming and literally glowing, as moms normally do on wedding days. Its one of my favorite all time pictures. She is glowing but its a black and white picture.
And then a year ago when I am staring at it one morning I realize, if I don’t mess up the car, if I don’t sit there for 45 minutes on that couch, the picture doesn’t happen.
My mom is long gone, she was gone 7 months after that picture was taken. Its a magical moment in time. And if I don’t mess up the car, and the ballgame traffic, it doesn’t ever exist. The picture that hangs in our living room of my beaming mom, that I talk to my daughter about, it doesn’t get created.
Sometimes a bad thing can be a good thing … if you let it….
Simpletition - Shawn D. Madden 