The Flip Side

It seems like a lot is going on this year and it feels like there are more things than usual to pay attention to, to fret over if you’re a fretter:  Presidential campaigns and elections, Supreme Court decisions with big repercussions, a war in Ukraine and one in the Gaza Strip, women’s health with the state and federal decisions that affect it, a total eclipse, book banning, the Summer Olympics, Leap Year. Add to that publishing a book, writing a new one (if you’re me), babies, weddings, funerals, global warming and the economy for everyone.

Easy to get stressed; easy to spend more time watching the dismal news than making your own. Easy to let worry and depression fill your thoughts and words. What seems to be harder in times like these is the ability to perceive the flip side. Because there is always a flip side, always a sunny side of the street, a silver lining if you will.

I don’t have to make myself fret--problem recognition and solving are part of my DNA. I do, however, have to make myself see the flip side.

I used to think that it was a gift to be able to pinpoint all possible obstacles to a situation. My strength in problem recognition caused me to look for solutions or mitigations so that the problems could be resolved quickly or circumvented altogether before they happened. It made me a valuable member of a team—while others were doing the cheerleading needed for the beginning of a project, I was already mentally flushing out problems and coming up with solutions so that the project would work.

But now, there are too many problems and I have decided I don’t want to solve them all; indeed I can’t solve them all. THAT is a big change in my mindset right there. The next change is redirecting my thoughts so that I stop thinking of things as being problems. Take book publicity and marketing—lots of possible problems there—enough to keep you firmly in your armchair reading someone else’s book rather than promoting your own. But, talking to librarians, other authors, PR people and networking are also opportunities to make connections and build relationships that, while they may or may not help you sell books, can definitely inspire ideas and bring more opportunities into your life---for all kinds of things.

Supposedly the Chinese character for “problem” is the same character for the word “opportunity.” I read recently, that that is not true, it’s a misinterpretation of the two characters that make up the word “crisis.” Whether this is true or not doesn’t matter because I know from life experience that what looks like a problem is almost always a pivot point for change, an opportunity to realize something better.

So, now I’m making myself stop and refocus my vision—what looks like a leak on my kitchen floor is really an opportunity to exchange some chipped and mangy flooring for something that is more durable and modern. What appears to be a two-hour traffic delay is an opportunity to catch up on email, do some people watching and create a new story about being stuck in traffic. An opportunity to think, not of what I have to do, but what I get to do.
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I’m still going see the problems first—it is part of my DNA after all—but I am getting better at turning a problem over before I begin to fret and looking at what’s on the other side. There is always the flip side.