So they went up for his first
jump. At the right spot, out he went. He counted to ten and pulled his ripcord.
The chute didn't open, but he didn't panic. He calmly reached up and pulled the
emergency cord. Again, the chute didn't open. Then the man thought to himself, "With
my luck I bet the truck won't be there either."
Isn't it amazing how we immediately want to look on the negative side
of things?
I recently had an opportunity to do just that. It was a Monday. (We
all know what a curse Monday's are). I spent the morning in the dentist chair
after a weekend of pain from two different teeth. In addition, the transmission
of my car went out and I was stranded on the side of the road. (Luckily several
friends stopped by and offered help).
It was a perfect opportunity for me to get down, for me to think the
worst and for me to mentally ruin the rest of my week. For some reason that didn't happen. There is
a Jimmy Buffett song that popped in my head. I kept focusing on the lyrics of
the song and knew everything would work out. I knew that it was just a car. No
one was hurt. No one was injured. It's just a car.
The Buffet song is called "Breathe In, Breathe Out". The
song was written to highlight the resilience of our gulf coast communities,
their people and their heritage after years and years of being ravaged by
hurricanes and in the aftermath of the coast's worst hurricane in recorded
history, Katrina.
The lyrics of the song say, "According to my watch the time is now, the past is dead and
gone, don't try to shake it just nod your head, Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move
On”.
What I take away from these lyrics and what I was
specifically thinking about as I was sitting on the side of the road, no matter
what is taking place in our lives, whether good or bad, the time is now. To be cliché,
we must seize the opportunity to live life in the moment. Embrace the hard
times to realize the learning opportunities. Embrace the good times to be able
to relish the memories over and over in times of despair.
I had never blown a transmission, not that I was looking
forward to the opportunity. But I learned some new things about cars. I learned
who my friends were. I knew which ones I could call to help me push my car off
the road. I learned how a chance encounter of meeting the brother of a fellow fire
fighter who owned a tow company would help me out and give us the opportunity
to share stories about our kids and our perspective on the fire service as I
had my car towed to the shop. I learned how the generosity of others and common
life problems would open doors, (and thankfully their rolodex), which would
help me understand what was going on with my car without breaking the bank.
This opportunity gave me a unique perspective of my job
and how important networking is to what we do. Not only is networking important
to my job as Chamber Director, I think it is important to all of our
businesses, our personal lives, our careers and our futures.
“My watch says the
time is now, the past is dead and gone, don't try to shake it, just nod your head...
Breathe in, Breathe Out, Move On.”
I’d love to hear your feedback. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter or
YouTube, stop by our website or shoot me an email.
Larkin
The story at the
beginning of this article is from Paul W. Powell's book "A Funny Thing Happened
on the Way to Retirement".
---
* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, July 8, 2012 issue
of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.
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