Freedom of the Mind

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” – Victor Frankl

Mr. D’s daycare opened 3 hours late yesterday because there was a possibility of snow the night prior. When I asked Miss O if for special, special she wanted to go to school late since Mr. D was going to go to school late, her response after carefully considering her 2^nd grade schedule was, “I’m flexible to miss first recess.”

Of course this is all a bit ridiculous because there wasn’t any actual snow on the ground (see featured photo). But Seattle is notoriously bad at handling snow. We once had a mayor who was supposedly not reelected because he did a bad job with snow removal the prior year. Not sure that really is true because every mayor seems to do poorly in that regard and some get reelected so there’s some faulty logic in there.

Just the threat of snow has meant Mr. D’s daycare closed early one afternoon so the teachers could get home in case it snowed. Then it did snow in the middle of the night but warmed up to 40 degrees and all melted before the kids looked out the window in the morning.

And then there was the late opening of daycare yesterday morning because of the possibility of snow. Not all of the teachers live near the school so it was a concession to getting them to school safely in case it snowed in the areas surrounding Seattle. I’m very sympathetic to this. I want the teachers of his daycare or any other facility to be able to travel safely.

But this change in routine for a weather event that never actually materialized caused me to feel crunched. Like when life changes unexpectedly, I’m the one squashed in the middle needing to adapt. It’s a little mix of self-pity and tiredness that seeps in because I know I’m going to have to work harder both at work and in taking care of two people because the routine is different.

I suspect that my irritation has two sources really. The first is that things were cancelled based on the forecast that never came to pass. It reminds me of how often I’ve not done or tried something because the conditions might not be right instead of outlasting the uncertainty to make a better decision. As Dr. Phil used to say (and he still might), “There is something about that guy that bothers me about myself.”

The second is that of course I need to get my work done no matter what the weather does. But I probably have more wiggle room than I’m willing to admit. It’s just hard for me to pivot enough to relax when factors outside my control force the option.

In my struggle to regain my equanimity, I thought of the quote Endless Weekend contributed in the comments on the Negotiation with Others post that I used at the top of this post. It’s by Victor Frankl, “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”

My feeling of being crunched is entirely under my control. Freedom can be achieved by doing the mental work to restore equanimity, regardless of the weather or other people’s decisions.

Which brings me back to Miss O’s decision. It turns out she really wasn’t flexible to miss first recess. It showed me that most of us, at least in my family, even without concrete pressures of work and money, have a hard time diverging from the routine. But life will force us to – and we just get to choose whether we’ll enjoy it or not.

So, thinking about the quote from Frankl, I finally worked myself around and rearranged my day, did a little more email before the kids went to school, dropped Miss O off in time for first recess and then took Mr. D to Starbucks for hot cocoa. It was pretty fun so it turns out there are some things worth being flexible for…

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