NothingPerSonal

Sometimes, things go wrong.

The plan gets cancelled.
The opportunity doesn’t work out.
The person you were counting on disappoints you.
The carefully organised day falls apart before breakfast.

And in that moment, it feels like life has taken a very personal interest in inconveniencing you.

Just yesterday, I had planned an entire day around one important meeting.

I had prepared for it, rearranged other commitments and left home well in time. Halfway there, the cab broke down and it was raining. By the time I found another one, traffic had become impossible.

I was irritated, anxious and mentally calculating everything that had gone wrong.

And then, just as I was about to call and apologise for being late, the meeting itself was postponed.

For a few seconds, I didn’t know whether to laugh or complain.

Since I was already out, I stopped at a small cafe right outside the meeting venue. I ordered coffee, sat by the window watching the rain and the greenery around. Honestly, I ended up having one of those unexpectedly peaceful afternoons that I would never have planned for myself.

Nothing extraordinary happened.

The problem did not turn into a grand opportunity.

But a day I had already labelled as “ruined” quietly became a good one.

That small incident made me realise how quickly we decide what an experience means, often before it has even finished unfolding.

We overthink it. We replay it. We wonder why things can never just go according to plan.

But then, life does something equally unexpected.

A different opportunity appears.

A delayed plan leads to a better one.

Someone turns up when you weren’t expecting support.

Or you find yourself laughing about the very thing that had you upset a few days ago.

Things go wrong.

And then, somehow, other things begin to go right.

Not always immediately.

Not always in the way we had imagined.

And perhaps that is the part we forget when we are in the middle of a difficult moment…we treat it like the final outcome, when it may only be one slightly messy chapter.

A closed door can simply be a closed door.

But sometimes, it also makes us notice the window we had been ignoring.

A wrong turn may delay us.

But it may also take us somewhere interesting.

And a plan falling apart can occasionally save us from a plan that wasn’t right for us in the first place.

Of course, not every disappointment comes with a beautiful explanation. Some things are simply frustrating, unfair or badly timed.

But even then, life rarely stays in one place forever.

The mood changes.

The situation shifts.

We adapt.

We find another way.

And slowly, without any dramatic announcement, things start feeling better again.

Maybe optimism is not believing that nothing will go wrong.

Maybe it is knowing that when something does, it is not the end of the story.

Because things go wrong.

And then, sometimes when we least expect it…..things go right.