I walked by a road-closed sign and scraped the back of my hand on it. It pissed me off. I almost kicked the sign over, it was to close to the walkway – I just moved it a little to give more room. I called my friend to join me for coffee, his phone went right to voice mail, his phone is turned off – as usual. I was going to my favorite coffee shop, but saw a sign for a new café so I headed toward the new one, then thought, “I don’t know what this new place will look like and I turned around and started toward my favorite. I gave the barista my order, it came, it was wrong, or actually, I ordered the wrong thing, I said, “Oh well”.  Took my order with my bleeding hand and sat down, feeling…what happened today? So I decided to write this little piece called, “How to right the capsized boat of my life.”

• Well, number one for me is to get out of the way, find a quiet place.
• I like to write, hence this article, this is probably the quickest fix for me – I’m already feeling better.
• Another thing is inventory; take a minute to see how I got into this funk. It at least slows me down.
• Then, of course, there is food. Try to make it healthy.

A bigger question might be, “What did happen?” When things, the day, your mood, your job, etc goes bad is there a cause? Do we need to spend a certain amount of time on the darkside? Is it a gradual decent that we can sense and reverse? Must we just ‘ride it out’? Is it best to vent the anger (kick over the sign) or to suppress it (breathe in through the nose out through the mouth). These are all good questions, for which I have no answers.

But of course the difficult times are when you can’t stop and find a quiet place. You got your kids with you or you have a deadline at work or for whatever reason, you can’t stop. Well, even then it is best to take a breath, look at something beautiful (a photo or a tree or just close the eyes). Just for 30 seconds. The craziness will probably continue, but your mind may need the break. For me the only response on my part that I always regret is anger. Embarrassing myself, or losing a bunch of money, or ruining an event are bad, of course, but they can be recovered from. Remember, you showed up, you were trying; you may have made mistakes, but who doesn’t.

Cheers, Todd