Don't Beat Yourself Up!

Today marks the beginning of another academic year after a long break at home. Most people, including myself, are always excited during this time of the year. For me, the thought of seeing my colleagues again, meeting new students and many more always gets me excited and as always I love going very early on the first day of resumption. It's something I love doing. That doesn't mean that I go late the rest of the days but I just love going to work very early the first day but then today, things didn't really go as planned. What happened? Do continue reading to find out.

”Beep-beep-beep-beep”. That was the first sound I heard as I opened my eyes very early in the morning. The familiar sound came up again and I stood up from the bed, took my phone and dismissed it. It was the sound of my alarm which I had prepared in readiness for today. Knowing that I might wake up late if I hadn't set the alarm, I quickly did that before going to bed last night.

I woke up feeling refreshed. I slept very early because I wanted to wake up very early to prepare for work. I started with my morning devotion before going into the kitchen to prepare a meal to take with me to work. Afterwards I went into the bathroom to start preparing for work and in no time I was done and fully dressed. Checking the time, I saw that I had a lot of spare time and I might even get to work earlier than I thought.

I packed my food into my bag and got ready to leave. I got to the bus stop and waited to get a bus to get me to work. I knew I might wait a while before getting one as the hike in the price of fuel has not only been a problem for motorists but also for people going out as there are fewer vehicles on the road. A factor I also considered in my plan.

After waiting for a while, I was able to get a bus which I immediately boarded. I glanced at my watch and saw that I would still get to work as early as I planned. We started the journey and everything was going smoothly until we got inside a bridge and we found ourselves at a standstill. The vehicles were not moving which means there is traffic. It's not always common at that part of the road by then it wasn't surprising. We waited for less than a minute before the bus driver saw a car making a U-turn and decided to follow suit.

I and a few people in the bus told him to wait for some minutes as it's unlikely for the traffic to go on for long but he said it's best he doesn't waste time as he overheard someone telling other vehicles to turn around and use the other road.

Now the other side of the road is still going through some construction but motorists do use it as an alternative in the event of traffic but then to get to the other road from where we were, the bus would have to travel back for at least ten minutes which means going back and then traveling again to that part of the road would take at least twenty minutes which wasn't part of my plan at all.

All our pleas to the driver to wait for a while fell on deaf ears as he kept driving back in order to take the adjacent road. He finally got there and turned and started afresh at the other side of the road. By the time we got to the bridge, we found out that most of the vehicles that were both in front of us and behind us on the other side had already moved and the cause of the traffic, which was a car that partially broke down, had been moved.

I heard him mutter something under his breath and some passengers blamed him for not exercising patience, thereby wasting more time than necessary. As if that wasn't enough, the bus, after leaving the bridge, broke down due to insufficient fuel.

Oh No! At that point, anger surged from me but I tried to keep my cool. Checking the time again, I knew I was going to be late. Luckily for us, there was a petrol station at the other side of the road and the driver was able to get enough fuel to convey us to the nearest bus stop which was where I would be stopping.

As I walked down the remaining distance to work, I thought of how things didn't go the way I planned but I figured there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, so I decided not to let that spoil my mood. I entered the school gate as the bell goes to alert the students for morning assembly. I quickly dropped my bag and did not join the students.

Getting back home today I couldn't help but replay all that happened this morning and there is no doubt that the events that happened this morning taught me some things. First, is to know that things are not always as they seem, in some cases it is very important to seek knowledge in order to get all the information possible instead of blindly following the crowd which was what happened to our bus driver.

The second thing I learned is that ”patience is a virtue”. Sometimes we could achieve so much by just waiting for a while or better still exercise a little patience instead of trying to overtake. The downside to not being patient might throw you back to the very beginning where you would have to start all over again thereby wasting more time and resources.

Another thing I learned is to ”not always beat yourself up” if things don't go as planned because sometimes no matter what you do, some things will turn out the other way round. In my case I planned out my movement and the time it would take me to get to work but it didn't work out. I wasn't too late, but then I wasn't as early as I thought I’d be.

I also learned to stay positive no matter what. Some people might attribute the fact that when things don't go as planned especially the first day of the week, it means one might have a ”not-so-great” week, but I really don't buy into that belief because despite what happened I ended up having a great day. I would not allow what happened today to determine the rest of the week for me.

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