I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.
Today’s tip is to look for something positive in a difficult situation.
My life is mostly great, and I feel strange complaining or getting upset about things. In general, my difficult situations are merely uncomfortable or annoying, and I try hard to remember that.
Difficulties are relative, and for me, I had a tough time with a bunch of things breaking at home. During a busy time, with lots of other commitments, I needed to stop and rebuild a hub on a trailer. It gets used every day, and I had a choice between rebuilding the exploded one, or adding some supports and bracing to a 2nd trailer. Neither was quick.
I was a little annoyed when I went out to see this, but then stopped to revisit how I looked at the situation. No one did this on purpose, it’s the way things go in the real world, and I know how to do this. While I was grumpy with a few people as I started, I managed to take a positive outlook on this as I got into it.
I got to practice a few skills:
- quickly removing the old hub bearing race with a specialized tool
- grinding down the axle where it was slightly deformed
- taking a break to get a new set of bearings
- using my experience to reassemble the wheel in about 40 minutes
- Not bending (too much) the hub cover tapping it back on.
All in all not what I wanted for the day, but it was fine. I got a few other things done, and got to teach a few people how to prevent this in the future.