In My Imagination
May 15th, 2007
No words today, but here’s a glimpse from my imagination.
Adventures of Inconvenience
May 15th, 2007
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”
- G. K. Chesterton
I absolutely love this quote. I’ve had many, many adventures and fewer inconveniences all based on this concept. When I found the quote, I knew that G.K. had found the truth, because I have experienced it in my own life. I look back at all the problems I ever had with my cars, and I consider them adventures, each one. There are A LOT of adventures that I never would have had if I had just owned a nice car. (Click on the link to read about all of my car-tastrophies)
When I was in grade school and we HAD to go out in the freezing cold for recess, my friend and I would pretend like we were on a trek in the wilderness of Alaska… or some other cold place. We dramatized it to the max- acting like we were orphans, trudging through the snow, running away from evil care givers, suffering through extreme hardships just to make it to a better place. Those were some of the best times we had, because it was all a big adventure. (at least in our imaginations)
On my first day of a new job in a city I didn’t know, I took the right bus home… in the wrong direction. I figured that I’d get home eventually if I just stayed put. I was wrong! I got kicked off the bus when we reached a military base and I didn’t have a military ID. Oops!!! I ended up walking a long way to get back to a place that I was familiar with. I had a good attitude though, and I got home– eventually. I considered it a walk to familiarize myself with the city. I was hot, and sweaty, and tired when I got home. That was okay though, because I had had an adventure!
A traffic jam resulting from an accident that closes the freeway can last a LONG time. It just so happened that I was stuck in one of these traffic jams on a perfect summer night. We were at a standstill for an hour- at least! It was a little frustrating until someone decided to make the best of it. They opened their car doors, cranked up the radio, and got out to dance. Soon, there were people getting out of their cars everywhere and dancing to the same song, on the same station blasting out of their car windows. It was one of the coolest things that ever happened– an instant street party on the freeway. I’m pretty sure that will never happen again. SO COOL!
Kids get bored all the time. It was a hot summer afternoon, and I wanted to make cookies. We didn’t have the ingredients, but my brother and his friends happened to be bored at the same time. He’s a lot younger than I am, so I turned our quest to make cookies into a scavenger hunt for the ingredients. Those boys thought the scavenger hunt was the coolest thing ever, and at the end we had cookies! Who would have thought asking the neighbors for a cup of sugar could be so fun?
As a person who deals with customers on a daily basis, I’ve learned that I can turn any inconvenience into an adventure. The thing is: If I’m having fun, and happy while solving another person’s problems, their stress melts away and the inconvenience magically disappears before our eyes. We never part thinking of our interaction as an inconvenience, but we become friends and allies in the process.
If I see an adventure, that’s what I get. It’s all just perspective I guess, but my life has definitely been one full of adventure and fun. When I get stressed out, I just take a moment and think, “Is this an inconvenience? or is it an adventure?” Taking a risk and venturing into unknown territory to explore is definitely my best answer– an adventure!