April Awakening: Day 13
I used to create these little microchallenges for myself in the hopes that something good would happen the next day. Like if I didn’t do X past a certain hour then I’d be setting myself up for a fine happenstance. If I did give in, I’d simply be pushing it back. Take this challenge for example: like I said yesterday, no THC this whole month means the world will really open up for me. At least that’s what I hope. It was always something I’d flush all my weight into anyway. But today proved to me that shit happens, no matter what kind of course of action I take.
Everything started out great. In my hour, JPMorgan Chase released its quarterly earnings, something my network, and all business networks really, watch very carefully. We get estimate times, but it’s not always accurate. We had just gone into commercial break when I saw the numbers break early. I shouted out that they were out, and made the ‘executive’ decision to bust out of commercial so we could hit the numbers. By doing this, we beat our competitor with one of the most important numbers of earnings season. I felt great. I knew I executed my job as I’m paid the big bucks to do.
And then everything went to shit.
Tech issues, guests not being ready, guests names missing from scripts, breaking news on the New York City subway shooting ‘person of interest’ being upgraded to a ‘suspect,’ conflicting reports, shots freezing on air… if one thing went wrong, a million things followed. All this while we were short-staffed and not enough bodies to cover it all. I put my head in my hands more than once, muttering “It doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter” over and over again. We just couldn’t make it work. We kept faceplanting in one pile of cow flop after another.
It’s not uncommon to have days like this. Everyone has a shit day once in a while. Sometimes you feel like shit, sometimes you have to deal with shit, put up with shit, act like a little shit, who cares what kind of shit it really is. What it’s boiling down to here is that it really doesn’t matter what kind of mindset I’m in. If I’m clear or not, bad things may actually happen to me. Things may not necessarily go my way, even if I stick to my goals. Is it a setback? A clog in the pipe? It could be any number of things. What I have to remember is that not every day is going to be bad, just like not every day is going to be good. I can’t keep hanging all this pressure upon myself solely to make good things happen for me. I choose that. I don’t need to wipe away any progress I’ve made thus far because “it doesn’t matter,” but I can stop beating myself up over every little setback. Sometimes it’s my fault. Sometimes it’s not. The universe aligns in its own way, and maybe it’s not up to me to force it out.
I’ll report back tomorrow on whether or not I had a drink after a hard day, as I’m actually going out on this beautiful Wednesday evening. No need to flush thirteen-plus days without a sip down the toilet, is there?
balanced & fair 