Last night my son and I were watching “How I Met Your Mother” on television and in the episode they showed this picture
and asked the question, “is it a rabbit or a duck?” The premise was that one is good and one is bad and it just depends on how you look at it. Then they argued over which animal should represent good & bad but that part isn’t important to my story.
This morning I was awakened by my phone ringing. It was my daughter Laura. She had gotten locked out of her car with it running in her driveway. It had snowed last night and she started her car and then got out to clean it off. It unexpectedly decided to lock itself. She was locked out of her house as well. It was about 3° outside and by all appearances this was an awful start to her day. Previously, an alarm didn’t go off and she was already running late for work. To top that off she was filling in for several people and the only one to cover everything so it was vital that she get there.
As I and my son have a spare key to her house, she called here to ask if we could bring it to her. My son was working and had the key with him at work. Laura said she would call my other daughter, Michelle, who also has a key, and see if she could help her.
She called back and said Michelle couldn’t get there right away. I figured I better just go to her so she didn’t freeze to death being outside. I could pick her up and take her to Michelle’s house and get the key.
I should mention that we all live pretty close together which is fortunate so it didn’t take me long to get to Laura. I drove to my other daughter’s house who had just started her car to go rescue her sister. Since I was there to help Laura, Michelle decided to taker her dogs out. Laura’s house key was on Michelle’s key ring in the car so I shut the car off and took the keys. I told her I would bring them right back.
Laura and I got to her house and got inside. Then she had to search for her extra car key. Her key is one of those remote start fobs and when she found it, it wouldn’t work. It turned out that the battery was dead. Then she had to search for a battery, which she found pretty quickly but the whole time was fretting about how late she was and all the responsibility that was on her.
She changed the battery and after several tries we finally got it to work and got access to her car. She thanked and hugged me goodbye and I was off to return Michelle’s keys.
When I pulled into her driveway I saw her sitting in her car, which wasn’t running because I had the keys. I was confused for a minute but then it dawned on me why she was doing that.
Apparently after she brought the dogs inside she decided to clean off her car. She went to go back into the house and discovered she was locked out. She had called me & Laura but I had left my phone in my car when I was helping Laura and Laura just didn’t hear hers so Michelle just sat in her car, knowing I would return soon with her keys.
When I realized what had happened I just laughed. After I returned home I sat at my computer and decided to go on Facebook for a little while. I saw that Laura had posted,
“Well today is off to a terrible start…”.
This got me to thinking that it all depends on how you look at things. Certainly the morning’s events could look like a horrible string of bad luck. But I commented on Laura’s status, it was a good start to her day. She was reminded of all she had to be grateful and happy about.
She thankfully put on her mittens before going out to clean off her car. Thankfully she had her phone in her pocket and not in her purse in the car. Thankfully I was home and able to come to her aid. Thankfully Michelle was there and had her key. Thankfully she had a spare battery for her fob and her car was nice and toasty warm when she finally got in it.
Of course there are a million other things to also be grateful for like she has her own home that she got locked out of and a job she was late getting to. Plus a ton of other things I won’t list but the point is how easily we can get discouraged and see things the wrong way.
So today was a great reminder that life happens and whether it is a rabbit or a duck depends on how we look at it. Today I was able to see all things as good and I have decided that one of my New Year’s resolutions will be to remember this day and that I have the ability to see the good in all things.
Happy New Year to Everyone and may the coming year bring you lots of rabbits or ducks depending on which ones you see as blessings.
I’m just blowing bubbles!
Thoughts are like Bubbles 2 