DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

There are days, and there are days. One day, you navigate seamlessly through your work, travel, socializing and a raft of chores. The next 24 hours may be a marathon of mayhem.

Car won’t start, colleagues are frayed at the edges, your hair won’t lay down and play dead, and to top it all off, it is pouring rain. The clerk at Chapters refuses your gift certificate saying it has expired.

On days like these, we are sure we have been cursed by someone or something, and we are even more certain that this day will never end. It always does though.

People always tell me not to take things personally. I will tell you the same thing. Time runs like a freight train whether you keep track of it or not. It pulls through our lives taking a lot of stuff away…chugging and expelling a draft of steam as it as it moves away from us. When it chugs right back it will bring as many things right back to us, as it haule4d away. That’s the train formula.

The other thing we can look at is the story of Anton Edmeau. He was a trapper who was besieged because of his brief interlude with Fake First Nations personality Grey Owl. He neither liked civilization or indulged in it. He had a brief stint with wearing proper clothes and being interviewed by news types. One day he asked a young man who had brought him food, supplies and a new axe “Why are you punishing me?” The young reporter said “I am helping you, aren’t I?”. No said Anton. “ I don’t like new things, I hate things with buttons because they fall off, and I hate you because you make noise.” With that the reporter hopped on a dog sled with his guide and never returned..

We experience this when we don’t welcome change and feel we are being punished when there is a change of the guard or wholesale adjustment to contend with. Don’t take it personally. The only things that don’t change are rocks. Well they do, but only every few thousand years, and they have no choice, capiche? Make change part of your vernacular, and weather the smelly days by remembering that a fragrant day has to follow the acrid day.