PEBBLE
If there is a problem, you can either fix it, or utilize the inconvenience.
~Lauren Head, written and shared by Lauren in Missoula, MT
BOULDER
The world around me, my circumstances, my situation – they don’t define me. My actions, what I choose to do about it all – that’s what defines me.
-Andrea C. Harker, written and shared by Andrea in Olympia, WA (submitted way back in 2011!)
PONDER
During a recent Team Ripples Zoom chat about gratitude, Lauren spoke the words that we feature as today’s Pebble. I immediately declared her casual statement 100% Ripple-worthy, and she later followed up with a powerful real-life example. A severe thunderstorm a couple summers ago took twenty minutes to wreak havoc on her community, yet Lauren spotted some upsides despite the extensive damage and nearly a week without power.
“I’ve never seen people come together so fast,” she wrote. “We met almost everyone on our street! Our backyard neighbors offered to come clean up the half of a tree we had laying in our yard, and did the same for the neighbors on either side of us.” She also shared how it created some extra space in her life for books, board games, and quality time with friends. “It was an inconvenience that I could have just stayed mad at,” she concluded, “but instead I took the time it gave me and spent it on things I haven’t been making time for in my normal routine.” Nice work, Lauren!
If Lauren’s wisdom is about choosing our perspective, then Andrea’s words in today’s Boulder encourage us to focus on our actions more than our circumstances. I’ve had these quotes paired up for a few weeks, and they’ve inspired me to experiment with some pivots myself. I reframed some minor back pain as a chance to savor a slower pace, and I quickly replaced some last minute cancellations with spontaneous mini-adventures.
Inconvenience has a sneaky way of activating our strengths and helping us appreciate the good stuff in life. Maybe this week you can keep your eyes open for a relatively minor inconvenience to practice on. Whether it’s extra slow wi-fi, troublesome traffic, or an extra long line at the store, see if you can utilize the inconvenience.
And keep in mind that we don’t have to be grateful that something happened in order to find something useful in it. It’s yet another quiet opportunity to pivot from “either/or” to “both/and.”
Peace,
Paul
P.S. I love it when ripplers submit their own words for potential future rippling, and it’s especially cool when both our Pebble and the Ponder were “written and shared by” our very own Ripplers. If you have a personal motto—or spot a line in your writing that feels Ripple-worthy—the “Submit a quote” button is waiting for you at the bottom of each and every issue of Ripples!