Unexpected circumstances create fresh perspectives

It has never felt good when things don’t go your way. Why would it? You wanted something, an experience, feeling or object, but you couldn’t have it. That’s natural. That’s not supposed to feel good.

What is supposed to feel good is getting the things you wanted and worked for. There are exceptions to this, of course. Sometimes you just get lucky and something lands in your lap you didn’t know you wanted, but you are over the moon because you have it. And there are some people who can get the most out of an experience when things don’t go their way. I am working on that last one. It is a beautiful trait in a person if they can overlook a big negative and find dozens of positives floating around it. Not if they are doing so to hide their true feelings and diminish the effect of the negative, but if it is genuine, they have an admirable perspective on the world.

Since the start of college, I have grown to consider how I handle these kinds of letdowns in life. As an adult who is prone to leaping before looking, I am not always afforded the same support system I had as a kid. There is not always someone or something there to help you keep your head up. There is not always an umbrella in the rain, or a flashlight in a power outage, or a vibration when you can’t find your phone. I am not saying anything new here, but I still think it’s important for us to think about every now and again. To think about what it is in our lives helping us smooth the rocky roads we find ourselves on more often than we care to admit.

There are some people and some things I didn’t know helped me as much they did before being in Ireland for a few months. That’s kind of sad, isn’t it? I know some sappy poet once wrote about distance making hearts grow fonder, but why can’t mine just grow fonder without putting miles under my shoes? And now that my heart has grown fonder, will it stay like that?

I am pretty susceptible to fleeting changes of heart, and any newly developed convictions of mine have a touchy relationship with persistence. However, I am holding out hopes for my newfound fondness I have developed over the period of my study abroad. That I will be able to recognize my support system and thank them for their help when things don’t go my way. I hope when I get home and see the people I have grown to love and appreciate more than when I left, I am able to express that love and appreciation for more than just a few weeks. And if my family, friends or anyone really starts to bother me and I question why I put up with them, maybe I’ll head out of the country again for a good reminder.