Look on the bright side of life and avoid getting pulled to the dark side

When things don’t go exactly as you might have planned, how do you typically react? Do you get stressed out? Are you someone who is always optimistic and sees the bright side of life or do you go over to the dark side of worry and negativity? Let’s face it, no matter how much planning you do there’s always a chance that things can go wrong, very wrong. It’s how we react to a situation that dictates which side you get sucked into.

Three days ago I visited the dark side and it wasn’t a very pleasant place to be. My husband, Brian and I left Vancouver for El Salvador. El Salvador is a Central American country sandwiched between Guatemala and Honduras. It’s a charming country which has little to any tourism so it’s pristine. We’re gone for a month so being me I over-packed everything including a library of thirty books.

Our flight from Vancouver on Air Canada, (those of you that have flown Air Canada probably know where this story is going) left an hour late. We had a connecting flight in Los Angeles then off to San Salvador. With the recent bombing attempt we checked the various airlines to confirm what carry-on items we could bring with us. Of course the website was incorrect. So there we were in the airport with our small carry-on bag trying to decide what to stuff into our suitcase and what we could literally carry in our arms on the plane. I ended up having to check three bags. This apparently was a big no no because when we got to LA, Taca airlines informed us that I was only allowed two bags and that they would have to pull all five pieces of our luggage so that they could hand me my carry on so I would only be checking two bags, if this sounds nuts to you, good because it was.

After waiting about an hour for them to find our luggage from Air Canada, Taca finally agreed to just let it go so that we wouldn’t miss our flight. We boarded at 12:10am already tired, dirty and somewhat miffed. Upon arriving in San Salvador we waited patiently for our bags and then waited some more. No bags. We were informed that the bags weren’t transferred from the Air Canada flight and that we should check back the next day. So with the clothes on our back and all our carry-on items in our arms we took our rental car and drove to the house we rented.

After settling in we went to the local shop and bought another set of clothes so that we could at least change out of our dirty airplane clothes. The next day we met one of our neighbors. He lives in San Francisco and comes down to El Salvador for the winter. We told him our sad story and he said, “Yeah you probably won’t have your luggage for four or five days”.  At which time I went completely over to the dark side and instantaneously allowed my stress level to sky rocket. I began imagining that our luggage would be lost forever and our perfect vacation ruined. I was thinking about all the books I packed and our laptops which we had to stash into our suitcase because of the carry-on restrictions. In the space of thirty seconds I had worked myself into such a state that my Brian had to calm me down.

Two minutes after our happy neighbors’ prediction the phone rang and we were informed that our luggage had arrived. Yipee! I actually did jump for joy. I was relieved and we immediately dashed to the airport to claim our prize.

If you’re wondering where this little tale is headed then here it is. I went to the dark side. I didn’t even consider the possibility that the luggage was just late but thought immediately of all the bad things that could happen. Stressful things happen in life. You can plan all you want but plans fall through or don’t work out as expected. There will be people who will feed into this fear and make it worse ie the neighbor. The less you listen to them and the more you start to look on the bright side the easier life will be for you. So when things look like they are starting to go sideways look on the bright side of life it’s a whole lot better than the dark side, trust me.