The Practical Joke

Ahhh…the humour of the universe…It escapes me sometimes.

 Yesterday, the great energy force of the world decided to play a trick on me.

Everything I typed was backwards. As in right to left. My cursor only went to the left hand side of anything I did, and spit out the letters going to the left, none of the buttons worked so I couldn’t even turn it off.

Naturally, I was in the middle of something ‘important’ and the disruption was unwelcome. I had no idea what had happened and because absolutely nothing would do what I wanted, I couldn’t fix it or even try. I wanted to run an anti-virus but that was a button on the right side of the screen and the mouse would only go to the left side. I couldn’t restart it because again the mouse wouldn’t go there. I was baffled.

And thoroughly unimpressed.

So, let me ask you this? What would your reaction be? You’re in the middle of a project, you have time constraints, you’ve arranged childcare so you have the time to work on this and your computer starts…

?sdrawkcab gnipyt

!ylsuoireS

Over the next few weeks I will begin shifting this blog to align with my passions and my life’s work. Which happens to be the field of personal development and the science of happiness. And one of my favourite topics is optimism.

Optimism, contrary to what many believe, is not about being Susie Sunshine. It’s actually a lens through which you habitually view the world. Optimistic people choose to look at the world though positive eyes, with the feeling of control over their worlds, view negative happenings as temporary and so on. More on that at another time.

So here I am, wanting to start working on my ‘happy’ blog with a backwards computer, a finite amount of time to get it done, no way to fix it…and I burst out laughing.

What else was there to do? It was pretty funny even if I wasn’t exactly amused by the practical joke. I am an optimistic person. No, I wasn’t impressed that my computer was in the twilight zone, but my view was that I can’t do anything about it right now and it IS a bit hilarious to watch everything come out of your keyboard right to left.

I laughed. This was a choice. I decided to not smash my computer to bits, thought the thought did occur. I decided to type to friend to see her reaction because I hoped this was short lived and I’d never have the chance again.  I decided that if this happened it could un-happen, somehow.

What would you have done? What do you do when annoying things, devastating things, fantastic things happen to you? Are you habitually pessimistic or an optimist?

And if you are a pessimist, can you become an optimist?

You can, and I will tell you how. Next time…

Tags: happiness, home business, humour, optimism, personal development