Looking on the bright side
Getting over life's little disappointments
This week I’ve been on holiday in Spain, dancing flamenco in Madrid and then travelling south with a friend to Andalucía to revisit Granada and relax by the sea on the Costa del Sol. While in Granada, we of course made plans to spend time exploring the Alhambra, the main draw for most tourists. Unfortunately, due to an error by the tour company we booked through, our tickets weren’t actually booked and so we weren’t able to enter the main part of the Alhambra. The Alhambra is so popular that you can’t just turn up and expect to book tickets on the day (they can sell out weeks ahead). However, because the complex is so vast, there are still lots of areas that are free to enter, such as the museum and the Carmen de los Martires, a house with a beautiful walled garden just a few minutes walk away from the main palaces.
Lots of things go wrong in life. I’m currently going through a period where lots of things aren’t quite working out in the way that I’d hoped or planned. Job applications, book proposals, Bad Bunny tickets… One thing that I have learned since embarking upon a writing career is that these small disappointments are par for the course. The best way that I can get over them is to focus on the good things. For every one thing that has fallen through, something else unexpected has come along. Being invited to take part in events, or people offering help with funding applications, for example.
I’m writing this looking out to sea from my hotel room in Benalmádena. There are far worse places to be! My positive outlook, I’m aware, can be quite annoying (my friend was as annoyed with me for not being furious enough about the Alhambra ticket debacle). But it’s my coping mechanism. There are so many things in life that are outside of our control, and I’ve made a choice to stop worrying about them and concentrate instead on what I can change. I can take feedback on my book proposal and use it wisely. I can talk to friends in the same line of work and find out about opportunities that they’ve heard about that aren’t going to show up on an online search.
This is just a short post this week. If you’re feeling in the same boat, or have had a recent disappointment, try not to let it get you down. It’s easier said than done, but take time to step away and refocus. A no is not always final, it can just be temporary or just for that one narrow avenue, leaving you with others worth exploring. And on that deep thought, I will leave you as I hear it’s almost happy hour at the pool bar…
A ‘No’ is redirection