How Did Charles Dickens Know?
by Linda Perret
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. When Charles Dickens wrote those words he must have been having the kind of week I was having.
My week started with a complete electrical failure at my home. The 10th time in the past three months that we have been without electricity, and not just for an hour or two but for 10 to 20 hours. Of course, it was during one of our heat waves and the temperature outside was 100 degrees, inside the house it was a cool 97! After three days of the Southern Cal Edison work crews being on my property 24/7 (and with the higher ups at SCE telling me there is no problem) the issue has been resolved…we think.
This was quickly followed by a computer glitch that slowed down my work schedule. Contacting the service provider proved ineffective as the wait time on the live chat was six hours. A message would come up and tell you to call the 800 number, which had a recording telling you they were closed. Customer service at its finest.
But all was not lost because at the end of the week I was going away for a few days. At least I could get away from the problems and relax a bit. Right?
Wrong.
The day before we were to leave a sudden and freak rainstorm hit Southern California…yes, the same California where we can’t water our lawns because of a drought…bringing along with it a ton of mud that washed out the only road between here and there.
So that was the bad, the good part was that through it all I was able to laugh…eventually. The troubles described were minor annoyances, unexpected things that had to be addressed. And I’m not any different from anyone else. We all have troubles, we all have weeks like this, and hopefully, we all survive them.
The frustrating part for me was that everything that happened was out of my control. The electric company wasn’t listening to me, the computer company was unreachable, and Mother Nature does what she wants. So I couldn’t do anything. But I remembered advice that someone had given me a long time ago. He said, “You are never out of control. You always have the power.”
It didn’t make sense until he explained it. No you can’t control circumstances but you have the power to control how you react to them. He explained in any given circumstance you always have two choices:
1. Inaction — Accept whatever has happened. Once you choose to accept it, you can no longer complain about it.
2. Action — Take whatever steps you can to change the situation. It may not be easy but it gives you the power of doing something.
In my case I chose Step 2. With the electric company, my neighbor (also affected by the outages) and I banded together and fought. We contacted anyone who would listen to get the work done quickly instead of the spring of 2016 as SCE had planned. The computer company got my service restored and the first thing I did was switch services. As for the mudslides, we simply postponed the trip for another time.
So I’m sharing the advice I got in hopes that when you have a trying time — and we all do every now and then – that you can use it. It’s terrible to feel like you have no control over what’s happening around you. But you can take back some control by knowing you have the power over your reactions and the effects it has on you.
And for me, I add a third step to the process….
3. Laugh!!
Linda Perrett is an award winning comedy writer. She followed in her legendary comedy-writer father Gene Perrett’s funny footsteps and has been involved in various aspects of comedy writing since she sold her first professional joke in 1990. She has supplied material to top comedians over the years, and has written comedy for the business world, addingf humor to executive speeches and fun to corporate award ceremonies. She was a staff writer for the television special celebrating Hope’s 90th birthday, Bob Hope—the First 90 Years. That show won an Emmy Award as best musical variety show, and Linda and her fellow staff writers were nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award for their work on that script. She and her father run a legendary website for comedy writers and aspiring comedy writers HERE.
Photo: unattributed (Heritage Auction Gallery) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons