You WILL Be Tested; In Life & Business

The THIRD time my car shut off!

The THIRD time my car shut off!

Life is not fair. Never is, never was and never was meant to be. Life is simply life. It doesn’t favor, discriminate or judge against anyone or anything. Life simply just happens. You either learn to roll with the punches or you’re destined to get trampled on.

This year has been particularly challenging for me on a few fronts. The business is going good, but is eating up more of my time (which is a good thing). But that makes working my contract gig a little bit stressful. Take that and throw in limited training time on the bike and my track season quickly fell apart. When you do limited riding to stay in shape, your weight goes up and your clothes get a little tight! To top it all off, throw in a little financial mayhem and things get really interesting.

Which brings us to last week. It was mid-week and I was headed to the contract as usual. Got about 15 miles into my 27 mile commute and in the middle of a downshift (on the expressway) the car cuts off. I mean, just shuts off for no reason! Needless to say, I got it started again and got back on my way to work…only to have it shut off again at the exit ramp where I pull off. Oh wait, it gets better. The pic above shows shut off number 3 on my way home and the car died once more as I was pulling it into the shop.

As of the writing of this post:
1. The car has been at the shop almost a week
2. They still don’t “really” know what’s wrong with it
3. I’m picking it up today to take it to another shop that does electrical analysis
4. Dropping off my daughter has been a little challenging this week

Needless to say, I have wondered several times over the past week just what I did to deserve this or who I made mad. I mean, I really could do without all this extra anguish in my life. But guess what? This is life kid; get used to it or get ready to get run over.

As humans, we often go through the whole “why me?” sequence whenever things aren’t going our way. But the reality is this; life and business don’t owe you anything other than one thing called opportunity. It’s up to you what you do with the opportunities that are given to you and no, no two individuals will receive the same ones. So when life seems a little hard, try and remember these things:

You Must Experience Trials to Appreciate How Good Life Really Is
If you didn’t experience pain, how would you know exactly how good joy feels? You wouldn’t. Thus, know that most of the trials you experience in life are temporary in nature and once over, you’ll be better prepared to appreciate the goodness that life has to offer.

Life Is Good
If you can answer yes to these questions then everything else can be solved:
1. Did you get up this morning?
2. Do you have clothes on your back?
3. Do you have a roof over your head (even if it’s only a viaduct)?
4. Do you have food in your belly or the ability to get some?

life is good

You Can’t Control Life
Life is like a casino dealer who deals out the cards when it’s your turn. Ready or not, when it’s your turn, Life will deal you your hand. Don’t like your cards? Tough luck, play the hand you’ve been dealt. Want some new cards? Maybe the next hand will be better (or worse). What about the player who just got an awesome hand? Worry about your own cards; you can’t change them and the other person is NOT you so it makes no sense to worry about what they’ve gotten.

I will get through this little car issue and some of the other things that are making life a little hard at the moment. But until things get a little brighter, I want to leave you with these quotes:

“You cannot control the length of your life, but you can control its breadth, depth, and height. You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat. Now give to us, O saving Lord, the bread of life to eat.”

“You should not confuse your career with your life.”

“You spend your whole life believing that you’re on the right track, only to discover that you’re on the wrong train.”

“You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated.”