Thankful that Nothing Happened

I am learning that sometimes I should be grateful that nothing happened. Let me explain. One recent week had many sources of distress. I thought I lost my building entry card, that has my photo on it and would involve cost and time to get replaced. I was annoyed. Also, I couldn’t access my Masterclass on-line classes. I called the customer service line but they couldn’t help me, even after giving me a new password. Not only were they not helpful— but after following all their instructions, I believed I lost other automatic passwords on my computer— thus leaving me worse off than when I started. I was upset. That same day, after returning from getting a haircut, my husband announced that he had lost his wallet—filled with credit cards and ID cards— a nightmare to replace, and potentially costly.  And one more thing, earlier in the week I went for a physical exam, as I had been feeling very tired in the past few months, and I needed to call my doctor for the results of my blood tests. I had some concern that some disease or deficit would be found in these tests, changing my life.

So what happened? After looking in the various compartments of my pocketbook, multiple times, I found the ID card— I must have missed one compartment. The morning after the Masterclass problem I turned on my computer, with trepidation, prepared to call the customer service line again, and voila—I could access Masterclass, and everything else seemed to be functioning OK. Then I searched my husband’s coats and pants pockets for the wallet, to no avail— but walking through the living room I saw the wallet tucked into the side of the living room chair. In searching his pockets, it must have fallen out and gotten wedged next to the pillow. And at the end of the week I called my doctor and learned that all my tests were normal.

All this helped me realize that feeling good should not just come from appreciating the good things in life that can happen, like having a nice dinner with a close friend or hearing that one of my children got a promotion. I should also feel pleasure when something that could have potentially gone bad, didn’t, or when there has been an absence of bad news. During that entire week, any one of those things I worried about could have turned out poorly— but nothing happened. Even more important, there was no bad news, like calls that someone was ill.

So, I can still hope for good things happening, like visits from people I have been eager to see, and wedding plans or promotions among family and friends. But some days I plan to just sit back and appreciate that while there is often potential for various things to go wrong,  nothing happened.