Grateful 31 Mar: Shit happens

When shit happens, shit happens! Hahaha… but frankly, I am not too concerned about it at all, as there is no point getting upset over things beyond my control. There are always more constructive ways of looking at situations. Here are some of the things that did not go well for me today, yet I remain thankful for them.

• Training. For the past two to three weeks, I have been chasing the training company regarding the confirmation of my training session this Sunday (Easter Sunday). Last Friday, they finally confirmed that it would proceed and that I will be delivering it. However, to date, I have not received any follow-up on the administrative details, materials, and so on. With Good Friday round the corner I got worried, so I wrote in again this afternoon. I then received a call and learnt that the company had screwed up. They had forgotten to register me with the authority to conduct the course (it is a government subsidised course and all trainers need to be registered to deliver the course). As a result, I cannot proceed with the training this Sunday. I have now been asked to swap my slot with another trainer. Am I upset? Tbh, no. The session has merely been postponed to a future date. This also means I have more time to prepare, and I can now focus on another course that will happen next week. That, in itself, is something to celebrate. Hurray!

• Course. I had applied for a one-year Specialist Diploma course commencing in the last week of April, related to what I do best - career coaching. However, I received an email yesterday (or perhaps the day before) informing me that my application was unsuccessful as the course was oversubscribed. Am I upset about it? Not really. I admit it has been on my mind over the past two days, but today I reframed the situation. Upon reflection, I had some reservations about the location and the course schedule. The F2F sessions of the course is being conducted in a polytechnic located in Woodlands, a good 2 hours plus journey by public transport! And had I been successful, I would have quite a few F2F sessions to attend next month. So this outcome means my April schedule will now be a lot lighter, and I will have more breathing space. For that, I am grateful.

• New Commitments. Next month, at least 5 to 6 days of activities have been cancelled or postponed (training, course, etc). Interestingly, just as news of these changes came in, I received a couple of messages from friends and social service contacts inviting me to lunch, appreciation events and other gatherings. The timing feels almost coincidental. Perhaps the postponement of the training and the unsuccessful course application are indeed blessings in disguise. 

And of course, apart from the above, my laptop also gave up on me today, and I got a blue screen bitlock prompt when I tried to turn it on. But well, I supposed it is an opportunity to learn about how to unlock it, and for this, I should be grateful. So once again, the experiences over the past couple of days - culminating in today’s training postponement - reinforce the saying that “when one door closes, another opens”. There is no point getting upset over things I cannot control, and I am grateful for this reminder, once again.