I can be a grumpy old man, don’t try to rescue me, I know it is true. The good thing is my being aware of this, having the desire to grow, and learning the skills to move out of that state and toward peace and happiness. Here is the setup for a recent example.
We are having a road trip in Colorado, very exciting and a lot easier than getting on a plane right now. Plus, after living in Colorado for more than a decade it is high time to see some of the gorgeous mountain towns. We choose Durango and Telluride, unfortunately, so do a LOT of other folks. I have always felt that when I want to visit a place every other human should pause their touristic pleasures and leave that place all to me. They never do. Nor do hotel people understand my great importance, which I do not like. Durango is a bit touristy and I want to head up to Telluride early, so I call the hotel to ask for an early check-in. The hotel person proudly announces this is not possible so I proudly announce I will cancel our stay. She could care less and seems excited to cancel our reservation. Now I am cornered and should immediately humble myself, but I don’t. At least though, I say I need to speak with my wife and then hang up.
I am angry. Really angry, and indulge myself in a long and eloquent diatribe about why the hotel industry should die and employees all over the planet no longer care about customers. Not only am I miserable but I am making my wife and daughter miserable. Thankfully, I choose to part ways from my dumber self. Step one - calm down and look honestly at what is happening. I am being a baby and making myself miserable. Step two - decide to stop being a victim and a baby and use my intelligence to shift my perspective. Step three - put myself in the hotels shoes.
After thinking a bit, intelligently as opposed to emotionally, I realize that were I to own a hotel it would be an impossible task to make all the people happy, because all the folks checking in want to check in at noon and all the people checking out want to check out at 5pm. That is impossible. What would I do? After careful and considerable thought I would likely decide the best solution is to balance the two needs along with the need for quality room cleaning and procedural considerations. This would ultimately lead me to the conclusion that the latest we could possibly let guests check out would be 11am, and the earliest we could let guests check in would be 4pm, and that as a courtesy we could allow our guests to use the hotel facilities and store baggage prior to check in. Yes, this is how I would run a first class hotel. Precisely what the staff person had told me on the phone. Brilliant!
Now I am super happy, and excited to get to the hotel early and take a hike while the girls use the pool.
I am (we are) a work in progress, exploring challenges and solutions all the time. There are great lessons to be learned, this is how it is supposed to be. Despite all my resistance I enjoy being an explorer and doing my part, and having this attitude about my life challenges makes dealing with them easier. This attitude gives my (our) challenges purpose, and by solving them a reward.
Do not take our part in human evolution and dealing with mental and emotional challenges lightly. If you spend a minute, how thankful are you about the hard physical challenges those before us were burdened with, and solved? I know I am grateful for the people that ate all those plants and figured out which ones were poisonous, and a million more things just like that.