Rolling With The Punches

"In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work toward it with all of your might." -Winston Churchill

The last few days have been nothing but a change of plans. Due to a water main break here on campus, a dance was canceled, buildings were closed, and now walking routes have been designated to allow for cleaning and repair. Having a water main break with below freezing temperatures causes a lot of issues, but we're Cobbers, and we adapt... or rather, our maintenance staff does.

More pertinent, Nicole's plans have changed. A lot of us bloggers, me, Nicole, Melissa, and Malyn, were all scheduled to make a long awaited trip to this year's MBLGTACC (Midwestern Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference) with members of a campus organization. It's going to be held in Michigan and requires a nearly 15 hour drive which caused us to plan about 4 days consisting of travel, conference, and then travel again. Unfortunately, and resulting in an immense amount of grief and sadness, Nicole will now be traveling to be with family after an unexpected death. I'm sad too, since last year was so much fun and I was really looking forward to a repeat experience. I was actually in the same boat last year with the death of my grandfather, but lucky for me, I didn't run into too much interference with travel plans. Nicole is undoubtedly going to be in the right place, and it just requires a lot of flexibility and adaptation on everyone's part.

Life often times involves rolling with the punches and being able to adapt to things you never saw coming, and probably never wanted to deal with. Things come up that alter your plans for good and for worse, but you have to be able to do the best with what you have, because while it's totally normal to resist that change and resist being put in hard positions, it's going to hurt less if you try to go with the flow.

The trick is you have to accept what you can't change and learn how to effectively change what you can. A death is something you can't change, neither is something like a cancer diagnosis, but you just have to focus your energy on how you can face those situations in a way that provides the most benefit and the least amount of detriment. You have to find the little things you can control and work with those to make the best of your current situation. Sometimes that's just finding a way to take a deep breath without losing it, and that's okay sometimes.

Now, to acknowledge the other side of this, don't let that become an excuse not to utilize your agency in situations you CAN change. Accepting the things out of your control is only one side of the coin. It's equally noble to fight for changes you know are attainable. You can fight to change policy, you can fight to change injustice, and you can fight to change attitudes and beliefs. Don't accept status quo if you can dream of something truly better.

With peace and love,

Megan