The Ripple Effect

                                                        

What you do now sets off a whole chain of events.

Have you ever had one of those days where one situation leads to another until you are left totally bewildered to where it all came from? Like when you wake up knowing that today is just going to be a day from hell and then it’s just that?

Bad day? How did it start?

Ok, so here’s a typical bad day from the recent past. Firstly, the alarm didn’t go off because HTB (it’s on his side of the bed!) set it for 6.45 PM, so I was later getting out of bed by ten minutes and it put me in a bad mood. Unkind words were exchanged about HTB’s alarm setting ability and mental faculties.

Getting into the car, I nearly knocked over a couple of kids on bikes. Every traffic light seemed to be on red and I only just got to work on time. Because I was later than usual, I had a hard time finding a parking space and had to get soaked on the way into the building (did I mention it was raining, too?)

 The day was pretty much a write-off. I got into an argument with a colleague over some triviality and made a mistake on a report which I then had to fix and got even more behind with my work. The final straw was when I got to the supermarket and realised that in the confusion at home in the morning, I had left my purse at home (thankfully I discovered this BEFORE filling my trolley!).

I sat in my car and cried. Why did this always happen to me? A whole self-pity script played through my mind and of course I felt worse than ever. And then suddenly I realised that it wasn’t me that was pathetic, it was my reaction. So I wouldn’t be able to do the shopping that night? So what? The cupboards weren’t completely bare, HTB and I are quite resourceful cooks, we’d cobble something together.

The lightbulb moment

 And then it occurred to me, if we can perpetuate negative cycles, surely we must be able to do that with positive cycles, where one act leads to another? Once these cycles start to turn, they gain their own momentum. But at some point the decision has to be made whether to start a positive or negative chain of events. Even if bad stuff happens, we can choose not to let it self-perpetuate by keeping a sense of measure and perspective (not all that easy when tired or under stress, but something to work on).

Cooking together helped HTB and I heal some of the wounds I’d caused that morning by taking my bad temper and frustration out on him. It helped me realise that there are few things in life that are worth getting that worked up about. I am making a choice to be positive. In some ways it is more realistic than being negative. After all it’s well known that most of the things we worry about never happen anyway, and the ones that do, well we’ll handle them as best we can. 

The best answer to those “What if…?” thoughts is “So what? I’ll handle it!”.

Please feel free to comment on this post. Do you think our thoughts and acts have a knock on effect in the world around us?