One of those days?

When I woke this morning, I could just tell it was going to be one of those days. You know, the ones where absolutely nothing goes right. I woke with the sinus headache that sent me to bed at 8pm last night, somehow, despite following my normal routine I was five minutes late in leaving home and barely made my bus. My manager informed me he would be out of office all day, a client called me names I won’t repeat, the headache and my tonsillitis left me feeling like crap. I wanted to curl up and hide from the world… My mother-in-law got taken to hospital… And then…

At some point this afternoon, amidst the chaos of the day, I heard a familiar voice somewhere in the recesses of my mind say ‘look at what went right, you have things to be grateful for.’ And so for a brief moment I paused amongst the chaos, took a few cleansing breath and looked at my day again.

Still having the headache and the tonsillitis became ‘at least the pain isn’t as bad as it was’.

Only just making my bus became ‘I made my bus.’

My manager being out of office became ‘he trusts me to handle this.’

The client using choice words became ‘you kept calm until you hung up the phone.’

My mother-in-law being taken to hospital became ‘she’s in the best place for her.’

I found myself remembering how I felt when I didn’t have a job, how I worried about paying the bills… And it reminded me how grateful I am to be working, how grateful I am that I can work.

Shortly after taking that gratitude break, I got offered free products from our stores, I had a chat with a colleague that made me laugh, another client phoned up to tell me they appreciated the work I put in for them, and the aggressive client thanked me for tracking down things for them.

A simple change in the way I was viewing the day turned things around. And as I walked out of work I looked at the Yorkshire Dales and found myself smiling. Today has been one of those days, but not the sort of day I originally thought.