Life is unpredictable - find joy in today

This has already been a week of good and bad news. I heard from two friends of the sudden deaths of young adults in their families. We were invited to a birthday celebration for friends in their 60s. A young adult niece had successful surgery and is recovering well. We all know that life is unpredictable and that now is all we have for sure, but do we appreciate that while we are living through the now?

Yesterday I started to get annoyed as I arrived at the dentist only to find out they had called 3 minutes after I left the house to tell me the appointment was cancelled due to illness. I started to get annoyed when I came home and found out someone had run over our full trash can (which actually left a pretty funny situation with squashed trash trapped inside - if you could look at it that way). I had not slept well as is the case about a third of the time.

It takes a conscious effort for me to recognize that my reaction to the daily annoyances of life really is unimportant. I feel much better though when I let it go and instead am happy that I and my loved ones are healthy and safe at this moment.

I'm not sure I agree with this statement though. I guess it would all depend on how you define "exactly as you please". It would please me to downsize and move. My husband would not like that right now as he isn't ready to retire. It wouldn't please me to have him very unhappy. Hard to get life to be exactly as you please as it is too complicated for simple guidelines.

I am holding in my heart and mind more clearly though that it is so important to not let the little things in life that go wrong have a negative impact on your appreciation of what is going right. Building you emotional resilience muscles is so important as whatever is next in your life will be wonderful, terrible, boring, inspiring, amusing, difficult, fun - who knows what will happen no matter how hard we try to steer towards our dreams.