In perspective

I recently posted a story about a night in the Sydney CBD and how paying attention to the moments brings enormous benefits. Here’s the post – “ Pay attention”  

Last week the same opportunity arose with an entirely different outcome, but upon reflection I realised how many situations I had to be grateful for.  

I spent the night in Sydney and went for my little ritual walk. A Little walk being 3 hours. It had been raining and was quite cold, but I still loved it. The fairy lights reflecting in the wet pathways, leaves in the tree sparkling in the street lights, and the harbor was alive with “life”. 

 My intention the next morning was to get up and go for a second walk. As luck would have it, my plane had been delayed yet again due to bad weather resulting in canceling my intended walk.  I took my time getting ready, made myself a coffee from the machine, and watched one of my favorite remodeling shows. Now I hate being late so I allowed twice as much time as it should have taken to get to the airport. However, when I got down to reception there was a queue to check out. No problem, plenty of time. 

 

Once in the car, I took my regular route to the airport. It was pouring rain, and an accident happened recently in front of me. I got out to assist, and everyone was ok but it caused yet another delay. I then had to take a detour to get around it. I ended up on a motorway heading in the opposite direction from the airport. An off-ramp came up to get off the motorway, which took me back into the city. The usual route was blocked, so I had to take an unfamiliar route. To avoid any more delays I pulled over to program the car’s GPS system. 

I made my way through the city streets and looked at the screen on the car’s GPS to see the next upcoming turn and drove straight through a red light.  Most likely a red light camera and being a long weekend I would lose double demerit points. 

By this time, I was peeved with myself, the situation, and getting increasingly frustrated. I was now running late and still had to drop the hire car back. I finally arrived at the airport, and being a long weekend, the lines were ridiculously long, and because of the weather, many flights had been canceled. I had checked in online but still had to drop off my bag. My flight was 5 minutes from boarding and I hadn’t even got through security. I approached one of the airline staff, and she escorted me to the closing flight line. She took me to the front of the line and processed me herself. I got through security and made it to the gate just in time for them to start boarding. Now I always choose a window seat so I get a view of the city and harbor bridge. When I got on the plane, my seat had a side pillar, so no window. Could this day have any more disappointments? Now I usually use the flight to catch up on some work, but after this particular morning, I blew off work to watch a movie. I tried to get onto the app without success even though the passenger next to me logged on fine. I begrudgingly settled on a podcast I had downloaded to my phone 6 months earlier. Because of the strong winds, the plane changed to another runway and the first half of the trip was very turbulent  causing the other passengers to get anxious. 

Now I could have gone home and sprouted a tirade of frustration for the challenging morning I just had Or I could choose to not tell my story as it was only on reflection that I realized I had a lot to be grateful for.  

  • I enjoyed another form of relaxation due to the rain preventing my morning walk
  • I had allowed enough time that compensated for the delay at the hotel reception 
  • Another few minutes earlier and it could have been myself caught up in the accident 
  • A random off-ramp allowed me to get off the motorway 
  • There was no other car coming through the cross street when I went through the red light preventing injury to myself and others.
  • The airline woman was kind enough to process me herself despite her having her own set of challenges
  • I was grateful that there was actually a closing flight aisle 
  • Security opened an extra lane just as I arrived that allowed me to get through it very quickly 
  • Because I arrived at the departure gate when they were calling passengers to embark, I went straight into the boarding lane and didn’t have to queue
  • Not having the wifi allowed me to finally listen to a podcast on my phone that I had had for six months. I got many hints and facts from it which gave me excellent material for my programs 
  • The plane changing the runway meant we did not go via the harbour anyway, so it made no difference not having a window. 
  • The flight landed safely without incident, and I arrived in beautiful weather  
  • My bag arrived and did not go astray
  • When I got home, I investigated the cross street where I went through the red light and discovered it didn’t have a camera. Phew….. Just saying.

 So there were two things I took away from this.

  • I could have gone home and ranted and raved about the challenging morning and most likely annoyed those around me. It would have resulted in changing other’s energy and spoiling their day. I choose NOT to repeat my story.  
  • What we plan doesn’t always turn out the way we want, but the time span was only the morning and not the whole day so keep it in perspective. Upon reflection, things could have been much worse, so I had a lot to be grateful for. The universe moved things around to keep me safe, and even though it was a challenging morning, It was JUST a morning .
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