Too Bad for Me (or You)

Sometimes, when we think it really matters, the choice is taken out of our hands.

The football game is cancelled because of rain.
The wedding party gets stuck in traffic.
The computer crashes.
The passport replacement office is closed.
The baby cries through the night.
The boiler or fridge or oven or air conditioning breaks.
The lab takes 3 weeks to provide results needed tomorrow.
The car battery dies.

The list goes on and on and on. Feel free to add.

For me, the frustration of things going wrong when I've chosen to do everything "right" is worse than my getting stuck trying to make the decision to begin with. Much more annoying. Terribly disappointing. And the way this week ended. On Friday, despite profound intent (and practical arrangements) to reverse a hiatus from the academic paper that is officially more important to me than any of the other work I do, I was stymied in my seat by my computer. In my attempt to upgrade my word processing software, I somehow sabotaged the software I'd been using (or the technical support people did). To the extent that I wasn't able to open any of my files. For the record, in case there was any doubt, sluggish decrepit software is better than no software. The tech people did manage to reinstall the old stuff -- but not before my entire Friday was gone.  5 1/2 hours of non-work. I suppose I didn't need to try to upgrade...but the last time I devoted hours upon hours to this work, my computer didn't save, even though it sure looked like it did. I thought I'd be ahead of the game by using uncorrupted software. The joke is on me, and I don't think it's very funny. The underlying problem remains to be remedied. Worse, how will I replace the disappeared time? Maybe there's always too much to do in too little time, but when the time you set aside gets inexplicably swallowed through (essentially) no fault of your own, the balance of a busy schedule seems upset without remedy.

And, yeah, on Thursday, I discovered that I needed the results from a blood test for Sunday (not sure why), but nobody had told me to take the blood test, and the best estimate for rushed results is three weeks. So much for trying to be responsible.

Oh, and Blogger wasn't working either.

I can almost shrug it off. That's the advantage of the matter being out of our hands. There's no guilt. No recriminations. Nothing to be done. Incredibly frustrating, and, on occasion, maybe even a little depressing. But nothing to be done. So we might as well laugh. Or shrug. In the meantime, it's too bad for me. And (almost) back to the drawing board, so I can figure out how and when I can do what needs to be done.

Once I'm back on track, I"m sure I'll be able to be philosophical about the detours.

(Please note: I'm not talking about the true tragedies here. When tragedy happens, God forbid, time stops, and there's little room for frustration).