Surprise!
Yesterday after a reasonably productive morning, I jauntily packed my gym handbag, went downstairs to the garage and reached in to hit the garage door opener, started walking to my motorcar and virtually stepped on a iii pes long coiled serpent.
I do not similar snakes.
Cats are better than people, dogs are keen, fish are fine. Snakes? Not fine. Definitely not fine in my garage. Definitely, positively, utterly not fine when I practically step on one wearing sandals and shorts. I didn't know it was possible to bound astern three feet, open a door in mid air slam it and scream bloody murder all at the same time. Now I do.
Now this is non a mail about snakes. I've seen all I want of snakes to concluding me a very long time. It's about surprise. And how well – or not well – you're prepared to handle surprise considering surprises are things that you don't get to organize, process, plan, review, add to your master job list and prioritize. They just leap out (or in this case, to be off-white, you lot walk into) at yous.
How prepared are you for both predictable and unpredictable bad surprises? Predictable surprises like earthquakes in California and hurricanes in Florida. Unpredictable bad things like getting mugged on your way to your car, or tripping and breaking your wrist.
At that place's a long list of web sites for the old (starting with this one), and having a backup paper copy of your identity and at least a passing familiarity with voice recognition (Vista comes with it, and it works) will assistance you deal with the latter, but above all else dealing with potentially nasty surprises is a mindset, an emergency way you get into when that commencement flare-up of adrenaline hits your nervous organization.
Subsequently my close encounter of a reptile kind, I came up with this acronym to remind myself of what to practice side by side fourth dimension I find myself in a one of life's little unplanned dramas. JUMP.
- Jettison your plans and your need to protect possessions. I had my whole rest of the day planned out – a program that went straight out the garage window when Mr. Snake decided he liked information technology just fine between me and my car. People sometimes would rather lose their lives than lose their plans – witness the depressingly regular news stories of the person drowned considering they only had to drive across that flooded intersection and the water couldn't possibly be too deep – until it was.
Every bit for possessions, 99.9999 percent of the fourth dimension, information technology's perfectly correct to want to keep what you have – just that .0001 pct of the time similar when there'south some punk with a knife in your face is a different story.
- Are You or your loved ones in danger- real, bodily danger this exact minute? Nosotros live in a earth where everything is a priority, a crisis, a danger – from screaming bosses to screaming headlines to no disaster however remote existence as close equally your TV or PC screen. We are adrenaline junkies looking for our next figurer game, sports or political fix. But these are not in the same league equally existence in a major earthquake or finding yourself face to fang with a perchance venomous reptile in your own dwelling. There is a difference.
- Move out of danger. It's just that simple and just that hard. Simple, because while y'all pondering for a whole second or two the higher up point, your body went from 0 to 100 in virtually iii milliseconds – it's knows what existent danger is and has a billion yr old solution that works: fight if you must, run if you lot can. Hard, because fright tin paralyze you if you permit it.
- Plan of Activity At present. After you are out of immediate danger, then brand a program. A simple plan. Sometimes, the difference betwixt living and dying is whether y'all can go your brain back online and come up with a simple plan (Be respectful calming. Drop wallet and run.) or non.
There are a hundred factors that can influence whether you lot can Jump or not when and if the time comes. This is where spending a few dollars and a few hours on preparation bachelor to anyone and everyone can make the difference. Bones disaster, start assistance and cocky defence force training tin brand a huge difference. Relying on the kindness of the universe is not a skillful survival plan.
Equally for the ophidian, it turned out to be neither the mortiferous cobra of my imagination or a venomous rattlesnake quite mutual this time of year in Sonoma County, California. Information technology was a King serpent that eats rats and rattlers, a skillful snake to have around I was told by my local animal command hotline, a snake some people have as pets that they walk in the public with wrapped effectually their shoulders and necks (shudder).
After some protracted territorial negotiation carried out with a walking stick and a mop, Mr. Practiced Serpent went back to eating bad snakes outside my garage and I went on with the balance of my afternoon. I remember we both got a reminder we both needed. :)
Bob Walsh sells MasterList Professional, a Windows task direction awarding and writes, codes,
podcasts and blogs virtually dissimilar aspects of the digital lifestyle at ToDoOrElse, MyMicroISV and Clear Blogging. His 2nd book, Articulate Blogging, is now available at Amazon and elsewhere.
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/surprise.html
0 Response to "Surprise!"
Post a Comment