Last week I found myself complaining a lot. My complaints were about trivial things like the weather, an exam grade, traffic, and a late submarine sandwich. There were a lot of these small complaints, adding up to a point when I felt as if my life was snowballing into an avalanche of bad luck.
“Why me?”
Then something happened at the end of the week, an encounter, that changed my entire outlook on all of my little misfortunes.
I was sitting in a coffee house. A young mother walked through the door, holding the hand of her son. The young boy looked excited that his mother was taking him into the coffee house. She let him pick out a muffin from the pastry display. She also let him order a hot apple cider.
The two of them sat at a table next to me. She asked him how his muffin tasted and he said that it was good. As he answered her, he lost hold of the muffin. When he reached to pick it up from the floor his other hand swept the table and knocked his cider over. It too tumbled but the lid opened up and spilled the content of the cup.
The mother screamed. It scared the boy because as soon as she screamed he started to cry.
The employees at the coffee house cleaned up the mess and they replaced the boy’s drink and muffin at no charge. His mother watched him carefully the second time. The two of them continued their discussion as the tears on the boy’s face dried.
“Why did you scream?” He asked.
“It wasn’t at you,” his mother assured. “I was surprised.”
“Oh,” he said with a pause. “Mommy, are accidents like surprises?”
“Yes, honey. Accidents are like surprises. Both of them are unexpected.”
“Unexpected?”
“Yes. You don’t know when they will happen. Some are good and some are bad. The bad ones you learn from. The good ones you enjoy.”
“I like the good ones.”
“Me too.”
The entire week had sent a spate of complaints to my life. Complaints based on some accident, some surprise. It took a mother and a child to remind me that life isn’t perfect. It is filled with accidental moments that come unexpectedly. How we deal with these moments of imperfection determines how we enjoy the moments of good surprises.
