Day 8: What to do when your day starts out shitty....literally

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*Firstly, I hit save instead of publish on this so please forgive the delay in it showing up!*

Some mornings just do not go as planned.  You wake up, you 54321 and get up out of bed.  You go pee.  Then you open the door and are greeted with the smell. 

Dog poop.

(I thought about inserting a picture here, but I changed my mind.  You're welcome.)

You see the pile and get it cleaned up.  But the rancid smell won't go away. You search for half an hour.  

And then you find it.

The horrific amount of diarrhea that exists in the kennel of your other dog. 

So you drag it out and start boiling water to get it cleaned.  Then you spend the next hour boiling water, and disinfecting the kennel. And of course making sure there is none on the actual dog. You finally get done.  You return to making your tea.  Now everyone is getting up for school and you have to attend to that.  Your miracle morning is shot.

Guess that means the day is just going to shit right?  

No. Dammit you are determined. 

Then it happens again.  Right as the husband and kids are about to walk out the door the horror smell is back.  You end up finding a disaster strike area in your freshly unpacked and cleaned library/office. It is enough to kill a fly mid flight, and that's saying something. Now you are again taking another half hour to clean up/disinfect, and this time the dog is going outside for the day.  Clearly she got into something.

You are now hours behind your routine and you still have a lot you have to get done. 

So you skip the workout right now.

Now that can be one of two things: 

1-a huge slip off the wagon and the start of a spiral of quitting

2-simply a delay

The choice ultimately is yours. Yes even if that "time for it" is gone. YOU get to choose whether or not it's important to you. You get to choose whether you will follow through on your promise to yourself or not. You get to reinforce whichever idea you choose to embrace.  That you are a quitter, or that you are going to show up. 

It may not be until 330pm while your husband is taking kids to get an immunization and you are supposed to be folding laundry.  But by God when that instinct hits deep down... 5 4 3 2 1... GET UP AND HIT PLAY!  I promise you'll feel better afterwards. In fact, it can give you total confidence in that you can still do things "right" even if your plans fall apart! You are amazing.  Que up the stronger confidence ladies and gentlemen.

(apologies, this is the only time lapse I got.  I thought I hit record.  I in fact did not) 

See that smile though? That was the smile of someone who kept her promise to herself.  And tore it up too!

This is my example today. Substitute workout for anything else.  

Study.

Work.

Laundry.

Reading with your kiddo.

Doing your budget.

Cooking.

Preparing that proposal for your boss.

and the list goes on and on.

"The best laid plans of mice and men..." No matter how well you plan, life can always throw a curve ball.  But YOU get to choose whether you focus and get a hit in, or throw down the bat and walk away before even trying.

Life won't always be easy, even when you are positive, even when you are peaceful and happy.  It's how we handle those hard moments that count and make our lives better because of it. 

Today for example, I could have started mentally cussing and listing the reasons I hate having dogs. 

 I could have been yelling and pissed off that the room I JUST finished was getting hit (and of course it would be MY space!). 

I could have let it destroy my day.

Instead, I chose to think of other things. Like this:

It sucks this happened. Poor pup.  Ya know, I am grateful for her sweet ways. The way she has taught me to be more patient and understanding.  I love every time she comes for affection because I know how hard a battle that was for her.  And she's not a barker or a destructo dog.  All in all, our dogs are generally pretty good! ugh this smells.  Ok, almost done.  There.  Done.  Open every window and find the air freshener!  Ok, go check on her and then carry on!

It isn't about burying or hiding the bad or pretending it doesn't exist.  It's about not letting it infect every aspect.  The thing itself is neutral.

There is gross poop on the floor.

While it is not a positive, you can choose to be positive through the clean up process.  Find the positives that are NEAR or associated with part of it.  IE in this case, the dog herself.  

Let's try another example:

A computer crashes and you've lost everything you just worked on so hard. 

Does that suck? 

OH HELL YES!!!

But can you learn from it? Can you find a positive angle? Yes.

"well, I better turn on the auto save every 30 seconds feature on the program.  Damn. Well at least this won't happen again!" or "It's a good thing I can recall a lot of what I wrote.  It may not be exactly the same, but I know I can get the information across. I did it once, I can do it again."  or "This is a good lesson not to assume technology will always be perfect." 

Then you fix it.  That means writing it again.  Perhaps emailing your boss to tell them what happened and assure them you are redoing it. Or your professor. Or your literary agent.  Whomever in this case seems right. 

And then you DO IT.  

Without bitching the whole time. 

Cause you know what will happen if you bitch and attack it negatively? The quality will be worse!  You will forget things.  You will end up dissatisfied no matter what.  Even worse- the next time you sit down to type, you'll have the same negative feeling come up.  Association is everything!

SO, if your day goes to poop in an office....clean it up and keep your promises to yourself. 

You can do this. 

You can do ANYTHING.