Proper perspective . . .

Our gravel road never, and I mean, never gets graded.    In fact, many times, the grader will do all the roads surrounding ours, but not ours.  Well, just the other day, he finally went through and made all nice and smooth.  Yeah!  Then it rained that very night.  No,  it poured.  The next morning,  all the heavy duty  farm trucks drove on it making deep ruts filled with water and mud all along the road.  Not yeah.
Murphy's law or what.

We just bought an army sized bag of cat food a couple days ago, put it in a 5 gallon pail with the lid on and that very night, the raccoons came, and yes, they got the lid off the bucket and ate the ENTIRE bag.  Seriously?!   Thanks Murph.

Then the boys put the badminton net up with all the stakes and boundaries perfectly measured out, played a couple games and that very night, an epic storm comes and rips the net to the ground.
You're starting to annoy me Mr. M.

Easy to get miffed - right?
Well - I had to put all this in perspective when I read this:  A couple months ago, there was this young guy who for three days was leading a major (MAJOR) golf tournament and everyone thought for sure he had it won.  Then, on the very last day, he shanked so many shots, he ended up loosing the whole thing.  By a lot.  People called it a meltdown, and that he choked, and that it was so bad how could he ever get over it and ever do well again. Especially since this very same thing had already happened to him in another MAJOR tournament just a few months earlier.  Ouch.  Now, he could have really gotten down about that, don't you think?  But  this young man, age 22 said after it was over, "You know, if loosing The Masters is the worst thing that ever happens to me, it's not such a bad thing."    WHAT?

You see, he had just gotten back from Haiti.  There he looked upon the REAL definition of 'loosing'.  He saw TRUE suffering first hand.  He witnessed the aftermath of the disaster there, with it's unbeliveable heartache and pain, and reasoned that that loosing a golf tournament is - well - way beyond insignificant.

Wise man, that Rory McIlroy.

So, if muddy roads, an empty bag of cat food and a fallen net are the worst things that happen this week - hey - it's not that bad of a week.  Unfortunate, sure.  Devastating - not even close.  

So  -  I need to concentrate on those things that are worth fretting about - and usually those things have nothing at all to do with me.

Perspective.  The proper kind.  I hope I will learn that as well as Rory.