My son and I went on vacation a couple of weeks ago with my sister and her children. The plan was to leave for the 10-hour drive as early as possible.
Then my sister called me: “There’s a problem, but it’s fixable.”
“Okay,” I said, hoping nobody was sick or injured. “What’s going on?”
Because we were driving to Canada, we had to have birth certificates for the kids and my sister didn’t have copies for her kids. She had to pick them up in the morning before driving north to my house. With this new wrinkle, we wouldn’t be leaving until mid-day.
During our conversation about what needed to happen before we could leave, I had many choices (as we always do, although I’m not usually so aware of that fact.)
- I could have asked, “Why didn’t you check to see if you had the copies of the birth certificates before this? We’ve known about this trip for months.”
- I could have told my sister I would drive and meet her there rather than driving with her.
- I could have berated my sister for not having the birth certificates—I could have berated myself for not asking her about the birth certificates.
In the few moments we were talking, and in the spaces between our conversation when I was thinking, this is what I thought:
- What’s done is done—let’s move forward.
- The trip’s not cancelled, just delayed a few hours—yay!
- What’s the most important thing? Enjoying the time with my sister and the rest of my family.
We hit the road at 12:08 PM the next day and had a wonderful trip.
What’s remarkable to me about this small snafu (and why I’m writing about it) is how little I stressed over it. In the old days, I’d have been thinking thoughts that caused me a lot of frustration, instead of just going with the new plan and doing more of my packing that morning instead of the night before.
And I think about the times when I’ve made mistakes like not checking to see if I had the birth certificates in my possession when I needed them.
Once, when I was a resident, I didn’t apply for admitting privileges to the hospital where I would be working after I graduated. It was the same hospital I’d been a resident in for three years so I’d been admitting patients there all along and it never occurred to me I had to do anything to keep admitting patients there after graduation.
So I scrambled to get all the paperwork done in the last couple of weeks before graduation. I got my admitting privileges in the middle of my first week of work in my new capacity as junior faculty at the residency. I missed one night of call due to my screw-up, which I made up later in the week.
No harm done, right?
Except in my mind. I spent months stewing over how badly I screwed up and I continuously beat myself up for my mistake. The director of the residency had been very angry when he realized I hadn’t applied for privileges and let me know it, but his words were nothing compared to the words I used against myself during that time.
I’m grateful I can use my mind to create an atmosphere of peace and love for myself, just as effectively as I used to use it to create a war zone to inhabit.
How are you using your mind today?