My recent inner dialogue:

Life lately.     Wow.      You know?       Just, ugh! 

We’ve all been there, that whacky place where life won’t stop throwing obstacles in your way for whatever reason. Usually when you’re trying to accomplish something important to you. But what if every obstacle came with a hidden opportunity, and you just had to find it?

Lately I’ve had a few minor obstacles. For example I’m in the middle of a new faith and fitness program which includes programming workouts, creating group discussion topics and writing weekly readings.

This is important to me. Like hugely important. And time consuming. Since it began, my primary productivity tools (laptop and printer) have both crapped out on me.

Why now?!

Productivity and planning obstacles are my least favorite.

Then, two weeks ago, there was the morning we discovered our car had been broken into, belongings rifled through, and things stolen.

And yesterday, at 3:45 AM, when J got up to let Moxie out for a potty break, he discovered our entire kitchen floor was covered in water. Apparently our neighbor’s laundry hose broke. They like to do laundry at 2 AM.

Morale obstacles. It’s difficult enough to function at 3:45 AM as it is.

My goal isn’t to complain but to explain.
I’ve been looking at obstacles differently.

I’ve been trying to hold my plans and my goals with open hands…knowing that God often has better/other plans and goals…so that I can take advantage of unlooked for opportunities when they just pop right up in front of my face.

In so doing, I’ve taken to heart the fact that…

I still allow myself to get upset and mull over a few choice words when crappy things happen, but I’m able to then step back and readjust my view. At the risk of sounding glib, I can better see the opportunities hidden within the obstacles.

The Opportunities

Quality. Creating this new curriculum is taking me a lot more time than I want it too, but I  need to be spending more time on it than I originally planned for. The quality of the content would greatly suffer if I were to rush it. Technical difficulties forced me to create the necessary space to do this right.

Freedom. Having a few things stolen from our car has affirmed my detachment to stuff. It sucks something was taken from me, but my belongings don’t own me and if they disappear, I don’t feel incomplete. This has caused J and I to talk more about life, if we could leave everything behind, and chase after a shared dream for our future.

Relationship. The unfortunate water incident helped us get to know our neighbors a little more. That’s really the best I can come up with for that. Oh, and it made J decide to stay home that day so we spent more time together, he helped with Moxie, and I got quite a lot done!

I’m not a fan of making minor changes to my plans or routines, but I’m learning to roll with the punches a bit more. I’m learning not to hold onto anything so tightly that I can’t grab ahold of opportunities when they fly by.