image mountain molehillsMy husband and I recently drove up to Chicago for the 4th of July weekend. We took our bikes with us so we could go for rides on trails throughout the city.

 

We had also mapped out where we were going to eat for all three dinners.  The first night would be at one of our favorite seafood houses that we frequent every year. My husband had received a coupon that gave us $25.00 off, which made the restaurant even more appealing. As we began to order, my husband realized that he had forgotten the coupon back in Cincinnati.

 

It seemed ridiculous to not take advantage of this opportunity, so we brainstormed on how to solve the problem.  Finally, he remembered that his ipad was back at the hotel and he could access the coupon from there.  We decided that he would walk back to the hotel, which was only a few minutes away.

 

Left alone with my glass of wine, I retrieved my phone and became engrossed in email and the internet for a while. With the dining tables situated so close together and nothing of extreme importance to distract me, it was difficult not to overhear the very loud conversation next to me. A couple had ordered drinks from the bar and was not happy with them.

 

After a closer listen, I realized that they were unhappy because the drinks were served in glassware that was very different from what they had anticipated.  The taste of the drink was fine, yet they felt that their specialty margarita drink should come in the conventional glass used in other restaurants. Finally, they called the manager over to complain.

 

The manager politely told them that the glass in which they had received their drink was their traditional glass for that restaurant. They didn’t even have any other glasses to use for a drink.  He went on to explain that the glasses utilized for all drinks fit the style and era of the restaurant. He offered to supply them with a different drink that might make them happy but they declined and continued to dispute the glass dilemma.

 

Remember, they had no issue with the taste of the drink.  They were unhappy with the glass.  They were stuck on this minor issue for a long, long time.

 

From my perspective, they took a perfectly wonderful dinner and found a way to put a damper on it.  In the grand scheme of things, the glass that your drink is served in is probably not a big deal.  However, these two were able to get a lot of mileage out of this one snag in their evening.  This led me to ponder how they would be able to handle an elephant-sized problem in their life.

 

Resiliency, happiness and health always come down to a few key things: being able to adapt and roll with the punches and having a keen sense of when it’s worthwhile to invest your energy in a situation or just let it go. This was one of those times where it was a complete waste of their energy and emotion.

 

Are you guilty of this same kind of behavior every now and then?  If so, you might want to contemplate whether some changes are in order.

 

Every day, each moment that we are given in life is a gift.  It’s time that we treat it as such.

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