Irritations Can Be Blessings

Irritations.

We all experience them.

Not the "bug bite type" of irritation, but rather the type of irritation that comes from other folks doing irritating things.

Paul Osborne from the Decatur Tribune wrote a great piece about irritations.

And how irritations can often end up being blessings in disguise.

Take a read thru his words below.

And remember to stay just a little bit calmer the next time someone irritates you.

Out for now.....

Matt

Sometimes, Irritations Are Blessings In Disguise

by Paul Osborne, Decatur (IL) Tribune

ONE recent Saturday I jumped in the newspaper’s cargo van and headed for a service station to fill up the gas tank before one of our employees would use it to haul Tribunes on Wednesday. 

I had a lot to do that day and the interruption to take the time to fill up the newspaper cargo van was going to make the day even busier.

So, I drove the van up to the only pump available, which was behind another car. 

After the driver of the other car finished filling the tank, he drove away,

Within a very short time, before I could drive out, a car was driven into the vacated lane in front of me, facing me.

I was going to have to back up to get out of the lane -- which is not that easy to do with a 3/4 ton cargo van.

I FINISHED paying for the gasoline and climbed into my van and started to carefully back up so I could work my way out of the station.

After I had slowly backed up to where I could get free, I stepped on the brake pedal and it went all the way to the floor! I had no brakes!

Since I was moving only a few miles per hour in backing up, I was able to pump enough braking out of the pedal to get the van stopped -- and then the brakes were completely gone!

WHEN I climbed out of the van and looked underneath, brake fluid was flowing out all over the place.

A station employee came out, looked at the van and indicated something had happened to the brake line.

He said he could fix it, but it would be Monday before he could look at it, since the repair department was closing for the day.

So, he towed the van to the back of the station and I was going to call someone to pick me up, but -- for the first time since I started using a cellphone many years ago, I had left it at the office.

I borrowed the worker’s phone to make the call, find someone to pick me up and wait as my day disintegrated.

MONDAY, the employee at the station called and said repairing the van was going to require more expertise than they had and asked if I had a preference to where it should be towed.

So, I had him tow it to the auto repair business of a man who has done so much work on that van that he is on a first name basis with it.

There’s a lot more I could write about this incident, that started with just putting some gas in the van and continued with one of my frequent excursions into the Twilight Zone  -- but I’ll stop.

IT WAS all pretty irritating, but then I started thinking about everything and realized what a blessing it was that it happened the way that it did.

Let me explain.

If the driver who had pulled into the station and parked his car in the opposite direction had not done so, I probably would have driven out of the station with no brakes and wouldn’t have gone very far without hitting, or being hit, by another car the first time I tried to stop.

Someone, including myself, could have suffered serious injuries -- or worse.

WHAT if an employee of the Tribune had been delivering newspapers in the van when the brakes gave out?  He could have been injured or could have injured someone else.  What if it had happened on a Wednesday instead of a Saturday -- creating all sorts of problems in getting the newspapers delivered?

If it was going to happen, could it have happened at any better place than where it did -- where a tow truck was within 30 feet of the brakeless van?

I had received some real “breaks” on the “brakes”.

AFTER I thought about all of those possibilities, why in the world should I complain or feel any irritation?

Sometimes, when irritating things happen to us, they can be blessings in disguise and may prevent something much worse from happening.

That’s why, the next time someone causes me an inconvenience, I will smile and say “Thank You” -- at least that’s my plan for now. 


(from Sept. 3 edition of the Decatur Tribune)