Even when I am having a very bad day at work, car trouble, or something else going wrong, I can usually end my day in a good mood. Sometimes it's just getting myself through the next hour, or the next ten minutes on a real bad day. All I have to do is change my way of thinking about my day. Instead of focusing on everything that is going wrong, I think about the end result, how relieved I will feel when this day is over and I give myself permission to feel hope that things will get better.

Even thinking back to worse days that I made it through can help put a not so great day into perspective. Many years ago, when I was fairly new at my job, I was running late, and my Jeep broke down in the middle of nowhere. There were no houses within walking distance, the temperature was in the 100's, and when someone finally stopped to help me I tripped and fell to the ground when I was walking over to her car. At this point, while I was laying on the ground, after being stranded out in the middle of nowhere in blazing heat, I thought to myself, "Great, now what happens? Do I get bit by a rattlesnake?" I thought that would have been the final insult, a fitting end to a horrible day. But I wasn't bit by a rattlesnake, and I was given a ride and a cold drink by a kind person who let me make a long distance phone call to get someone to come out and help me fix my Jeep.

Once you have survived your "Rattlesnake day" ordinary bad days don't seem so bad. Once I had faith in myself, I knew that I could make it through almost anything if I just keep on trying.

Of course it doesn't hurt to be prepared to help yourself. I know that I may often be out in the middle of nowhere, so I pack my lunch box and purse with a lot of forethought. Not only do I always have a bottle of fresh cool water, but a small first aid kit is always in my lunch box along with my sandwiches and milk. I keep an extra bottle of motor oil, some transmission fluid, and extra brake fluid in the Jeep at all times.

Sometimes if you don't have what you need, you can improvise. I once got stuck in some deep mud, where the road had been dug up by a construction crew, and it had rained a lot, delaying the repaving of the road. I didn't know that the ground was soft enough for the Jeep to sink in up to the axle. Once I realized there was no way to go get help and it would be hours before anyone missed me enough to come out and look for me, I knew I had to figure how to get unstuck by myself. Looking around me, I didn't see very much that would be of help. The only thing out there besides me and my stuck Jeep was some very tall grassy weeds.

The part of my brain where I store usually useless facts offered up the idea that bricks are made of mud and straw. I certainly had enough mud, so I decided to add some straw to the mix. I gathered armloads of the tall grass and stuffed it under the Jeep tires, deep into the tracks in the mud, I kept gathering and adding grass until I had a path built back to the solid ground. Then I offered up a little prayer that this would work, and started the Jeep up. At first, it didn't seem that it would work, but after a breathless moment, the Jeep began to move up out of the mud. I finished my day muddy and wet, but I made it through to the end, and sometimes that's all that really matters.

--- © Renee