Curbs, Speed Bumps, and Road Blocks

Sometimes in our lives, things don’t go as planned. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we are rejected, and sometimes things don’t work out.  Whether we see these as hitting a curb, speed bump, or road block is all about our choice in how we look at it.

In my role as assistant principal, I have worked with parents who saw their children’s mistakes and subsequent consequences as roadblocks to their futures. While I have a wider perspective and understand that the situation is simply a speedbump for their children, I try to be sensitive to the parent(s) who doesn’t (don’t) have the scope of perspective that administrators have, and I try to reassure parents that the choices their children have made as well as the ensuing consequences are simply opportunities to learn and grow.

Today, I participated in the Spring Fling activities that our Student Government Association sponsored for our student body. The SGA has different activities in our courtyard during lunch periods for the students to enjoy, like badminton, corn hole, and inflatables. I agreed to be in the dunking booth today during the first lunch wave.

At the end of my “shift,” I noticed that my little toe was cut and swollen. I went and changed clothes, dried my hair and fixed my makeup, then I made my way to the health room to see the nurse. She advised me to go to the urgent care walk-in clinic that’s only a few minutes away from the school to get a tetanus shot and let the doctor look at the cut.  

The nurse took a look at the cut, cleaned it up, and gave me a tetanus shot. When the doctor came in, he was very thorough and said that he couldn’t stitch it up because it was so close to my nail bed. He used a type of skin glue to adhere the skin together so that it would heal. Because it was so swollen and continued to bleed, he wanted me to get an x-ray to find out if it was broken.  Also, because I had asked how long it would be before I could run again, he wanted to be able to give me sound advice based on my injury.

It turned out to be broken, and he told me I needed to wait at least 2 weeks before I run again. He advised me to stay off of my foot as much as possible, keep it elevated, and wear a post-op shoe as a precaution.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I’m a part of a Nike plus running group trying to get to 500 miles in 2015. I’m also in the middle of leading a group in a health & wellness challenge on Facebook where part of the commitment is to exercise every day. I walk our huge building at work and love visiting classrooms. Hearing the news from the doctor was not what I was expecting. 

Now is the time for me to walk the walk.

There have been many speed bumps in my life journey, as well as some road blocks. I’ve even hit a few curbs. Because of each experience and the strength of people around me, I’ve grown to be an optimist about setbacks. I've learned that our plan is not really our plan. I expect the best and prepare for the worst.

So while I could let today’s events create a roadblock for me, I choose to make it a speed bump.

How do you overcome setbacks?