A flat tire. An extra fee tacked on to a hotel bill. A cracked screen on your phone. A bike stolen from your garage. A large charge that they won't refund. A deal blown up by a missed email. Nobody likes these things. But does anyone think that a life without them is possible? No, of course not. We understand that sometimes you get ripped off. Sometimes you make mistakes. Sometimes stuff falls apart on the one-yard line. Ok, then why are you so upset? You know it's a statistical certainty, a basic fact of life. Yet here you are, cursing it as if it's unfair. As if you've been singled out. Instead of just accepting it, instead of just saying to yourself as Marcus Aurelius tried to say of shameless people (who he also believed were a statistical inevitability), ok this is one of those people. Don't ask for the impossible, he said, don't get upset that someone who was bound to exist, exists or that something that was bound to happen, has happened. We can't escape it. We can only accept it…and be grateful that it's rarer than it could be. |