For everything you have missed, you have gained something else.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I always try to look on the bright side of things. I don’t always succeed, but I do always try.  If I’m going to be perfectly honest, it’s easy to look at what has gone wrong rather than what has gone right. I know it is for me.  I think it is for other people too.

I wish I knew why it was like this, I bet if I could figure it out, and figure out a way to change it, I’d be a millionaire 🙂  A couple of years ago, I made the decision to start looking for a new car.  When I was done researching, my plan was to give my old vehicle to my son, who was driving the minivan I got when my kids were 6.  He was 22 at that point, so it was time.  Well one day, on his way to work, he got hit by a person who ran a red light because they were taking a sip from their water bottle.  Thankfully nobody was hurt, but it was the end of the line for Spike the minivan.  Yes my van’s name was Spike.  It was a minivan, it needed a cool name.

My son went into flip out mode because he was going back to school in a few weeks and he needed his car on campus that year to get to his internship. All he could think about was how his life was ruined, his senior year was ruined, and he wasn’t going to be able to do the internship.  Yeah he was incredibly happy that nobody got hurt, but that was the only good thing he took away from that experience.  What good things? Aside from nobody being hurt, we had insurance, as did the other driver, so things were going to be taken care of.  He wasn’t old enough to use the rental car, but I was, so he just used my car and didn’t miss any work at all – except for the day the accident happened.

I bumped up my car search, and while he didn’t have a car to take to school, he had one the second week of school.  He had a much better, safer car than he would have, had Spike survived the accident.  Between what we got from insurance, and what I had saved, I was able to get a new vehicle for myself and give my son my car to use.  And guess what, I didn’t get to spend as much time researching and test driving cars, but that’s okay too.  Bright side, I went back to the dealership where I worked before I started teaching.  I renewed some friendships, and I got a car that I loved.  I could have focused on negatives, but instead, I chose to look on the bright side.  Honestly, it makes life so much more enjoyable!