This post is from my #quickthoughts series; my no-filter, no-proofread, no-spellcheck thoughts on the things happening around me. These thoughts are written as they happen and are intended to be transparent, personal, and (as the kids say) raw! Here goes… (don’t forget, no spellcheck)

I’m currently writing this post from an airplane heading back to New York from Miami, Florida. Me and my wife (sitting to the right of me) celebrated our one year anniversary and her 24th birthday by taking a week “off “ from work and exploring Florida. We stayed at three (3) different places; Tampa, South Beach, and Downtown Miami (in that order).

I’m sitting here replaying this amazing trip in my head and the only thing I can think about is the fact that “everything truly does happen for a reason”.

This is a personal mantra of mine that I’ve been living by for years and it’s helped me to THINK before I overreact to every situation that I’m involved in. It’s made me change my mentality so much that instead of worrying, I start to EXPECT great things to happen as a result of things going wrong.

The next time something goes wrong (whether you left your suitcase at the wrong place, left your phone/wallet in a cab, traveled hours to find out the place you were going was closed), instead of spending time complaining, blaming people, and arguing, try adopting an ‘everything happens for a reason’ mentality. (If you’re religious, you know the saying “God works in mysterious ways”).

What does it mean to have an ‘everything happens for a reason’ mentality? It means to embrace the things that goes wrong and move on from them. It means to see every situation through and expect a good to come out of it.

Picture this scenario.

You went to sleep and your little sister came to your room after to play games on your phone. While using your phone, the battery dies, which leads to your alarm not being available to wake you up the next day. After waking up an hour late, you get dressed and head to work. When you get to the train station, you realize you missed your train and have to wait an additional hour. Once you finally get to work, you learned that since you were already on probation, you get fired.

Darn, that sucks!

And yes, you can spend days / weeks complaining about how your sister got you fired from your job, how much the train system sucks, etc.

Or, you can realize that ‘everything happens for a reason’.

As soon as you left your house, you saw your neighbor, greeted her and complimented her on her grass. While running to the train station, you saw a weird object on the sidewalk and placed it in the trash. While running up the stairs to your train, you realize the young lady next to you is also running for the same train and you both end up missing it. You both started venting to each other about how much the train system sucks, and it led to conversations about mutual friends, favorite bars, and the fact that you guys live 5 minutes apart.

Little did you know, the compliment to your neighbor earlier that day is the reason that she’s still alive today. Your acknowledgement gave her enough confidence to call the suicidal hotline and to seek help with her depression.

The weird object that you removed from the sidewalk and placed in the trash would’ve been in the way of little Jimmy who was riding his bike to school that day. His wheels would’ve collided with the weird item and lead to him falling off his bike and breaking his arm.

Oh, and that young lady you met who also missed the train, she just got out of a bad relationship. From your conversations with her, you end up asking her out on a date and the two of you become inseparable. A few years later… marriage, kids, house, family. You get the point!

Did your little sister really get you fired from your job? Or did her actions kickstart the life that you were too afraid to go find?

Everything truly does happen for a reason and the sooner you accept that fact, the sooner you can start having a different outlook on life and EXPECTING great things to come out of disastrous situations.

Sidenote: Is ‘disastrous’ a word? It sounds like a word and Pages (word processor) didn’t correct me. Plus there’s no internet on this flight so I can’t Google it. Anyways, back to the thought.

Yes, disastrous! I’d even boldly claim that there’s NO such thing as bad things happening; just things. And it’s the way we react to them that tells our fate.

During my trip, all of the things I mentioned above happened to me (not the story about the guy getting fired). I DID leave my suitcase in Tampa and realized it when I got to Miami (4 hours away). I DID travel for hours (two different days) trying to Jet-ski and both times they were fully-booked or canceled. I DID leave my phone inside an Uber (cab) while rushing to catch this plane. We DID have to leave our AirBnB apartment at 5AM because we learned that they had bed bugs -___- (thanks to Dahcia’s commitment to finding those little things that left bumps on her baby’s arm).

Sidenote: Dahcia (to my right) is fast asleep 🙂 … man I love that girl! btw, it’s her birthday TODAY. Okay, back to the thought.

Yes those things happened to us during our trip, but still, it was the BEST trip  I’ve ever taken.

Since I left my suitcase, I ended up contacting an old friend who lived about an hour away from Tampa and had plans on heading to Miami the next day with his girlfriend. We all spent a great deal of time together this weekend and catching up and none of it would’ve happened if I hadn’t left my suitcase.

After going around in circles trying to Jet-ski and being told the wrong information, it led us to a nice little quiet place where we were able to Jet-ski with no interruptions from the memorial day weekend Miami goers.

After the 2-hour long hassle of packing, washing/drying our clothes and leaving our bed-bug-infested apartment in South Beach, we ended up going to an amazing hotel in Downtown Miami (with a Jacuzzi, pool, basketball court, gym). Nick, my Tampa friend, wouldn’t take NO for answer and decided to pick us up at  5AM and bring us to his hotel room in Downtown Miami for the night/morning. The front-desk lady was nice enough to approve our request to change the room to a double and we stayed there the rest of the weekend.

Oh, and AirBnB? They refunded me fully for my booking which ended up saving me an extra $500 from the trip 🙂

I can go on for days but the moral of the story is clear, Everything happens for a reason!

Ps: My cellphone/wallet was returned to me just in time for the flight by the nice Uber driver who refused to take a tip from me!

All in all, it was a great trip!

Now here’s a challenge to you:
Think of somethings that may have went wrong last week. I bet if you really concentrate you can probably think of a few good things that happened as a result of that thing that went wrong.

Go ahead, try it!