Inconvenient Blessings

Sometimes life getting in the way is a good thing. It makes decisions for you; limits your options.

Today, the power is out from 9am to 5pm. Sure, that means there are some things we can’t do. Conveniences are lost. Annoyances creep in. We can’t open the fridge, for instance. The WiFi is out. These are first-world problems, of course, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to frustrate us.

Having choices made for you, though, even if they’re not terms you’d typically agree to, can be liberating. Without a fan or air conditioning in this heat, it simply makes a lot more sense to spend the day outside. Since the power outage covers our whole area, we’ll have to travel somewhere new to find lunch. It renders refreshing my phone entirely pointless. It grants me permission to have an unhurried morning. What would I be rushing towards?

When circumstances change drastically, you often can’t help but to sit back and reflect. Often, having no say over these circumstances is better. It means you can relinquish control. You realise that simply being frustrated isn’t useful. So, you buy in with whatever cards are in front of you, however different they may be to the curated hand you had in mind.

Life throwing curveballs at you is not always a blessing, I appreciate that. Plenty can go very wrong, very unexpectedly—and not in a positive way. But most times, silver linings exist. Everything going to plan can be your worst enemy, if you need the script to play out exactly as it was written. If you can get past frustration and discontent, and embrace the mess, having to craft something out of pieces you don’t recognise can energise you with a freedom you never knew you needed, and unburden you from a weight you never realised you were carrying. You’ll still probably want your control back, but you might be glad you lost it, even if just for a moment.