Have you had a
chance to see the movie, "Yes Man?" It stars Jim Carey, and he plays a
negative man who attends a meeting where he is challenged to say yes to
everything. He is inspired to try this tactic for one year. It is a
comedy, of course, and he finds that sometimes saying yes to everything
can cause more problems than being negative. But it is a feel-good
movie with a great ending where he finally finds he's overcome his
negativity.
I did go see this movie. And, frankly, it inspired ME!
Now, I don't consider myself a negative person, but it occurred to me
that saying yes to more opportunities - instead of my usual "No"
reaction to something outside my "comfort zone" - can only benefit me.
So, when my daughters asked if we could go to the Rose Bowl, I had the
thought and my lips were poised for saying "No," but to my shock, I
said, "Yes." We hadn't confirmed other plans that day, so instead of
taking it back, I thought, "What the heck! Might be a lot of fun."
Oh, poor naive me!
I
ordered the tickets online thinking we'd have plenty of time to get
them in the mail. Wrong. So, on 12/31, I called Ticketmaster and was
told that the tickets had been cancelled. I said, "Why did you cancel
them?!!!" The rep said, "Well, you just said you hadn't gotten them,
and they are for tomorrow." Egad! I finally got it worked out that I
could pick them up at Will Call at the game.
Still confident
that we could have a great day, we left to go to the parade before the
game. We paid $25 for parking, and as we were walking away from our
car, the lot attendant said, "You realize that you're six miles from
the parade... right?" Ok, so after trying to get a better parking spot
(streets closed, lots full), I found one. Trust me. It was a
nightmare. But I'm still in a good mood...
The parade was great! Ok, so far (ahem!), so good.
Then, off to the game. I quickly realized that Will Call was not going
to work, and just at that moment, a guy came up and asked me if we had
tickets to sell. I said no, we needed 3 tickets. Like a magician, he
pulled the "rabbit" out of his hat and said, "You want good seats or
better seats?" I said I wanted better. He said they were $150 each;
after realizing I was telling the truth that I only had $350 in my
wallet, I got the tickets.
So, off we went. We waited in line
to be able to get through the tunnel to our section, walked in, and
were blinded by the sunlight on all the white Penn State jerseys
surrounding us in the bleachers. Our newly purchased USC jerseys
didn't stick out at all! Not!
We finally found our seats and
only then realized that the man who'd sold us the tickets had sold us 2
tickets in this section and 1 ticket two tunnels down. So, we traveled
over to that section to see if we could find empty seats to sit all
together. We did. Ah! Things were looking up... until the owners of
those seats showed up. We tried a second time. We got to spend a
total of about 15 minutes sitting together.
We headed back to where we had 2 seats together and my daugher, Hailey, sat in my lap for most of the game.
Does this sound awful? I am telling you exactly what happened that
day, but I'd made up my mind that we were going to have fun, and that's
exactly what we did. We overcame every obstacle - and basically pulled
it off - and the day was a success. I am really glad we did that, even
with all the problems. I think there might have been a time when I
would have not had such an attitude. But once you get the hang of it,
it becomes a lot easier to only look at the positive side of stuff.
Certainly made it a lot more pleasant day than it could have been!
Hope your New Year is off to a fabulous start!
Love,
Gerry
Comments