How my bad week relieved itself

This week was indisputably stressful.  It began on the wrong foot, continued on the wrong foot, and yesterday, everything was resolved.  When I look back on this past week, I keep turning to something I wrote about earlier this year: nothing is as bad as it seems.  Too often, I

Photo I took when I was trying to convince myself that life is beautiful

find myself overdramatizing the outcomes of a situation.  I let myself dream up all the worst outcomes, and these potential outcomes add additional, unnecessary stress to me.    

I believe attitudes are contagious, which is why I try to avoid sharing negative thoughts on this blog.  However, this is quite relevant to my life right now.

My week in a sum [or more, all the bad things that have happened this week]:

• Monday: woke up to find I’d knocked over my bamboo plant on my desk when I was sleeping.  Soaked my phone and my iPad.  My iPad case wasn’t functioning.  I was very worried about that.  I stressed I would have to buy a new one and that I wouldn’t be able to use my iPad for a long time because it was broken.  That was too extreme: I can still use my iPad even if the keyboard case doesn’t work.   
• Tuesday: I found out I’d lost my music binder.  This binder contains approximately 5 years worth of music learning in it.  It has two music books and tons of random music sheets.  I had lost it all.  I felt I had lost all the hard work I’d put into the instrument because that was my last connection to what I’d learnt from my old piano teacher, who taught me for almost 10 years.  It wasn’t the music that was valuable to me: it was the fingerings and the notes and the ideas that were written on them about how to play the music.  This incident made me realize how much my music means to me.  I don’t think this epiphany would have come to me if I didn’t lose my music.
• Wednesday: I thought one my friends was talking negatively about me behind my back.  I was hurt that this would happen.  I ignored my friend for a solid two days until Friday.
• Thursday: I worked on my math homework that afternoon, but found I had a question.  I went to math study center at night to ask for some help.  I didn’t get the help I needed, but the worst part was when I returned back to my dorm, I found I’d left all the math homework I’d completed that afternoon in the math room when I went to ask for help!

Friday was the big hitter when everything I thought could possibly go wrong regained itself.  I found my music binder that night in the practice rooms at Graves.  Then I found out my iPad keyboard was still working after completely drying out for a couple days.  And my math homework was short enough that I had time to redo it all [it was good review].  As for my friend, I found the gut to approach and talk about the situation.  It was a crucial conversation that we had, because there was a misunderstanding between us.  I’m still grateful that I read Crucial Conversations this summer, as I’ve once again found myself employing the tactics used.  

Few things in life are as bad as they seem.  When I have a lot of stuff to do, I make lists using Reminders on my phone.  There always seems to be a lot of things to do in my head, but when it’s written down, the same mental checklist seems shorter.  This is how I’m going to approach Finals week.