Don't Look a Karma Gift Horse in the Mouth

I know we're all guilty of this.

You're having a shitty day, and you think to yourself, "Why me?", and wallow in a tiny tiny pool of anger and self-pity that we tell ourselves we're allowed to jump into once in a while. Well, I had a little experience a few weeks ago that has made me stop taking even the bad things that happen for granted.

I got stuck on a project at work that made me leave five minutes late past peak hours. I work on the top floor of an office building and there's only one elevator that services my floor after peak hours. So if you miss it, it's a real bitch to wait for that one elevator. So here I was, cursing that I would have to wait like 5 minutes for an elevator. I was literally walking out the office door into the elevator lobby when all of a sudden the fire alarm goes off. So now I'm even more pissed cause now I have to walk down 33 flights of stairs because all the elevators shut down during an alarm. It may not seem like a big deal, but I bring a huge ass 17" notebook to work with a lot of accessories which including my carrying case, is an extra 17-18 lbs. of weight. Trotting down 33 flights of stairs with that extra weight is actually pretty hard on the knees. So there I was swearing because of that fricking project that had made me 5 minutes late, was actually going to make me 20 minutes late and give me sore knees the next day. I was not a happy camper.

Soooooooooo, the next day, I discovered that the fire alarm went off because the one elevator that serviced my floor, had a small fire. I'll give you a couple of seconds here to simulate the stoppage in time I experienced as my jaw dropped and my brain slowed down to imagine what would have happened if I would have gotten off work in time.
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Yah EXACTLY!!!! Instead of standing at there, at that moment in time, jaw agape, I could be in the morgue right now, a victim of being burned alive or at best in the hospital with severe smoke inhalation.

So that lead me to think, maybe I should be extremely happy in life right now. Perhaps karma has given me the lesser (or at least the not MOST severe) of the multiple traumas that could have happened to me. So the next time you curse your bad luck for having that green traffic light turn red when you're already tardy, or not winning some cruise you sooo wanted to go on, try not to stay in a bad mood too long. Maybe you managed to evade being t-boned by some idiot who ran a red three intersections ahead? Or maybe you just managed to avoid contracting a fatal tropical disease? Or, you never know... maybe karma *is* pissing on you and you would have had a fantastic vacation?

"Sometimes in order to move forward, you must leave something behind" - Unknown