Photo by exfordy

Catching a cold. Rained out days. A baby who couldn’t sleep.

These things aren’t supposed to happen during your dream holiday, right?

Back in March I wrote The Perfect Day, an article in which I pointed out how appreciating the simple pleasures in life can hold the key to enjoying each and every day. This word “perfect” popped into my head again a few weeks later during my family holiday in Hawaii.

As I indicated at the start of this article, not everything went to plan. I caught a small cold halfway through our stay, Xavier went from sleeping through the night to continually waking up and we had a few days of solid rain and/ or overcast conditions.

So was my week ruined? Fortunately the answer is “no”.

Despite these setbacks I still had a wonderful week. We saw some spectacular scenery, ate some amazing food, snorkeled with turtles, watched Orca whales breach out of the ocean and enjoyed a few days of sunny weather. Perhaps more importantly, though, I was able to deal with the fact I didn’t feel 100% and the mental chatter saying “this shouldn’t be happening on my holiday” when it was raining or Xavier would wake up for the 10th time during the night.

The following are what I consider were the three keys to dealing with these setbacks:

Acceptance

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Often when I experience setbacks the above serenity prayer comes to mind. I ask myself:, “Can I change this?” If the answer is “yes”, I get started on changing it. If the answer is “no”, I realize that I need to accept what I am experiencing in this moment.

When it came to the setbacks I experienced in Hawaii, I was able to realize there was not a whole lot I could do about them. That didn’t stop negative thoughts from arising in my head, but because I was aware of those thoughts and didn’t identify with them, they soon dissipated.

Gratitude

I wept because I had no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet.

In the larger scheme of things the setbacks I experienced are nothing compared to the hardships and struggles that millions of people face every day. I live a very fortunate life, and when things don’t go according to plan I always find it helps to remember all the things I have to be thankful for. For example, I may have a cold, but that will pass and I should be glad that I don’t have any serious health problems. Or, my son may have woken me up again, but I should be thankful that it is just a case of him sleeping in a new environment and not anything more serious.

I think it is very easy to focus on what we don’t have and/ or what is going wrong. We all have so many things in our life that we can be thankful for, but because they become so familiar to us we forget to appreciate them.

Optimism

Despite getting a cold, I was always optimistic that it would soon pass. Actually quite the opposite happened – it stuck around for at least a week. But I know that by being optimistic that I would soon be back to feeling 100 per cent, I helped myself feel better in the present moment.

We all experience setbacks and unplanned events during our life. One of the major things that separates happy people from unhappy people is the way in which they think about these events. It’s the old “is the glass half-full?” or “is the glass half-empty?” If you tend to naturally see the glass as half-empty, there is hope. You can learn to be an optimist.

Some Final Thoughts

I think “perfect” can be a dangerous word. It’s ok to look back and think “that was a perfect day”, but if we aim for perfection there is a good chance we will be left disappointed. More often than not things in life don’t go according to plan, so perhaps the most important thing is to plan to be surprised by what life brings us.

This entry was posted on May 9, 2008 and is filed under: Happiness, Life - 9 Comments »