Last week I travelled to Berlin, with my wife, to meet up with friends for a short break. It didn’t start off well…
A delayed flight from Southampton meant we missed a connection in Amsterdam, we were then re-routed via Brussels and finally onto Berlin. My wife’s bag was ‘misplaced’ so we ended up arriving 8 hours later than expected and without most of our luggage. (It was returned a day and a half later)
As most of you will appreciate, or, if you have experienced something like this yourselves, it’s an emotional rollercoaster ride. From disbelief, anger, despair, laughter and upset – we went through it all, but eventually managed to enjoy the weekend with friends.
The return journey didn’t go well either! Delayed from Berlin, a missed connection in Amsterdam, only to be re-routed via Manchester to Southampton, 4 hours later than planned. Another emotional rollercoaster ride! At least the baggage turned up this time.
I must admit, it took effort not to explode and have a go at some of the people involved with trying to sort things out for us. The customer service, at times was diabolical and other times was even worse, but, the long and short of it was, we got home safe and sound and we had a great time with friends. We walked around some of the amazing sights of Berlin, catching up on old stories and creating new memories.
We did take some lessons away, regarding flights and potential ‘snags’ and will change the way we plan next time.
Sometimes you have to appreciate the good and leave the other ‘stuff’ as a distant memory. The travel problems are now part of the story for the next time we meet. We will laugh about it and embellish the story to make it even better for years to come.
I realist that, in the whole scheme of things, it was nothing. Having the ability to let things go that are out of our control, is a skill that needs constant practise. When emotions run high it often ends up with a bad outcome (As McGregor and Khabib found out).
There will be things, this week, that will affect your ability to think straight, interferences that get in the way and push the emotional buttons. How will you keep positive and in control when you are up against it and just want to scream? Here are 3 things we did:
- Walk away and give yourself time to calm down – time to breathe
- Rely on others to deal with things if you are too emotional – sometimes I was mad and my wife sorted things out and other times it was the other way around
- Control the controllable – the main thing it to look for solutions and do something about the things you can affect
Don’t sweat the small stuff, learn from the experience and laugh about it in the future….