Life is messy.
In lots of different ways.
There are literal messes in our homes.
Constant cycles of cleaning up, making new messes, and cleaning up again.
There are messes in our jobs.
Mistakes that are made or decisions that leave behind a jumble of problems and frustrated people to deal with.
And there are messes in our minds.
Tangled webs of thoughts that we try to unravel and decipher meaning from. Thoughts that sometimes keep us up at night and make our hearts race.
The physical messes at home are typically the easiest to deal with.
Like the one I made yesterday.
We've had a run of sickness through our house this past week and DayQuil became our friend for a few days.
I was gathering things to take upstairs and I put the DayQuil on the shelf by the landing with a few other items.
When I was ready to go upstairs, I picked up the bottle, along with a bunch of other stuff.
I immediately knew I didn't have a good handle on it. And it slipped out of my hands.
As it turns out, the cap wasn't screwed all the way on. I watched in slow motion as the bottle tipped on its side, the cap flew off, and the thick, orange liquid came pouring out.
It missed the carpet on the stairs by several inches, and the splatter pattern just barely touched the sole of my brand new running shoes.
As far as spills go, I would say I was lucky with this one.
As I cleaned up the sticky mess, I was grateful that I didn't have to clean the carpet. And that I wouldn't be running the half-marathon with a giant orange stain on my new shoes.
I was grateful that the tile floor was easy to clean and that I had enough paper towel in the house.
It could've been a lot worse.
I don't enjoy cleaning up messes when they happen, but I've learned over the years that it doesn't do me any good to get upset about them.
There's no avoiding messes in life.
We are going to make them.
At home.
At work.
With our family.
In our friend groups.
I think the key to cleaning them up in the best possible way is to pause, step back and breathe before we tackle them.
Consider the ways the messes could have been worse. Be grateful that they weren't.
Find the most effective ways to clean them up and take note of the things you could do differently next time to avoid the messes altogether.
Next time I pick up that bottle of DayQuil to transfer from one room to another, you can bet I'm going to check to make sure the cap is screwed on tightly.
In the grand scheme of the messes in my life, the puddle of medicine I had to clean up yesterday is pretty insignificant.
But the lesson isn't.
Like most things, it's all about perspective.
It's how we look at things and the way we either find the good in them or dwell on the negative.
I choose to find the good. Even in the messiest of messes.
Life is happier that way.
I've learned that from experience.
Which do you choose?
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