Life Lessons from Small Things
Potholes in life and what you can learn from them.
Sometimes you can derive life lessons from the simplest things. You just need to open your eyes and ears and especially your brain to make the connection.
Here is my life lesson I learned from Starbucks. Well maybe not Starbucks but from my travels to and from Starbucks.
While exiting the parking lot at Starbucks, I use to fall into a small pothole.
Now the thing about potholes, is that the hole wasn't always a hole, in actuality it was no different than the rest of the road, but when enough people drive over the same spot, and that particular spot has a weakness, a depression and eventually a hole will emerge, and if unchecked, the hole will get bigger and bigger.
Now I kept hitting the hole day after day and never thought to change my path to avoid the hole. I started damning myself for not having the forethought to intentionally miss it, until one day I missed it!
HOORAY!
Then, I thought to myself, I didn't create that pothole by myself, and that means I am not the only person who ran into that weakness in the road. I'm not alone and I am not the only person who falls, but I can choose to miss that pit in the road.
For months I proudly altered my route and missed the hole, constantly thinking how many people continue to hit it.
Until...
One day, much later, I noticed that the hole had been patched! The hole finally got large enough, and enough people fell in to the hole, that the call was made to fix that hole.
Now I didn't have to think about the hole and blissfully went on my way, to and fro, until one day, BUMP! I fell into the once patched hole. UGHH! Funny how old weaknesses just pop back up. That weak spot, although patched was still a potential problem, and many still followed their old patterns and the patched hole became a depression and then, once again, a hole. I stopped paying attention and fell in the same hole that I thought I had overcome, and so did a lot of other people.
What can we take from this life lesson? Weakness is common and a lot of people have the same ones. Mine may not be yours, but you can guarantee that you have a pothole in your life and you are not alone. We also constantly need to keep our weaknesses into check, so we don't repeat our lessons. And if you do fall, you will not be alone.
The people who need less sleep are the ones those who need a lot of sleep take advantage of. What happens is the one who doesn't sleep much ends up getting up early all the time and never gets the luxury of sleeping in because the sleeper just keeps on sleeping, blissfully unaware that the other person is slowly resenting them for their unthoughtfulness.
I am sleepless. I CAN get up early after staying up late. I function famously well without much sleep. But doesn't it feel good to sleep in?? Please tell me, you sleep-less-ers? Because I don't know.
I'm the one getting up in the middle of the night to let the dog out, or back in, getting up with the babies for overnight feedings (when they were babies), or putting the toddler back in bed for the 7th time because she doesn't like sleeping in her own bed and Taking the kids to school before the crack of dawn (poor kids).
Like right now, it is Saturday at 8:00am. not too bad of a sleep-in...for me. Everyone else is in the house sleeping still, but the dog couldn't hold it any longer, so I took her.
Heck I just couldn't go back to sleep and it made me mad! I don't have medical reasons for not sleeping well, Just kids and pets and a sleepy spouse. Am I sleep-deprived? does not getting enough sleep make you mad?
Don't get me wrong, if I ask my hubby to get up, he'll get up, but the point is that I have to ask and that means I am already awake and then I can't go back to sleep. Can't I keep on sleeping sometimes and be able to depend on someone else for a change?
Anyone else in my bed (shoes)?