Choose Wisely

"You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past." --Richard Bach

I lost $250 the other day. Or, at least I thought I did.

I was in charge of teacher gifts for both of my sons' classes this year. A total of three classes, seven teachers and more than $1000. It was a lot of checks and cash and envelopes and forms to keep track of and manage.

The day I went to hand out the gift cards I found I only had six packets, not seven. One was missing. One worth $250. 

Crap.

I started to panic. To go down that road of....Oh, great. Just what we need to have to replace $250 worth of gift cards right before the holidays.... 

And then something clicked or shifted inside of me and I thought: Wait. Maybe the packet is just missing from my order. I should probably check before I freak out. 

So I put my freak out on hold and sent an email to the guy in charge of procuring the gift cards. In the meantime I went about my business for the day, not fretting about the missing gift card, knowing all was in Divine Order and would be taken care of. 

And a funny thing happened. I started to realize that losing the gift card really wasn't the end of the world. I realized that if having to replace $250 worth of gift cards was the worst thing that happened to me that day I was still pretty lucky. It wasn't a life, it wasn't a limb. I was doing all right. 

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In the end, of course, I hadn't lost the gift card after all and all was well. But I feel so lucky to have had this opportunity to practice choosing a different future.