Day 19: perspective is everything

I can't get the song "Timing is Everything" from the incredible (and severely underrated) cinematic masterpiece Country Strong out of my head. (Granted, all day I mistakenly thought it was from The Hannah Montana Movie, yet another underrated phenomenal work of genius, but still.)

But in the version that's been playing on repeat in my head all day, Garrett Hedlund and Gwyneth Paltrow are sweetly singing "perspective is everything." Aha, another hit.

I like to think I have a substantial bank of positive, encouraging quotes and phrases in my mental arsenal, ready to be whipped out and diligently repeated when times are tough. Wise words I focus on until my palms stop sweating and my heart stops racing. When I'm stuck in traffic and about to jump out the window, I silently repeat the mantra "Be patient. Drive safely. We're all in this together." (I saw it on a billboard once and now it's my personal highway motto). When I'm on a long, hard, jog, feeling like I'd rather be hit by a car than run another step, I say "Thank you God for this beautiful world you made for us to enjoy, and for my strong body to explore it with." When I spend too long on Instagram and the green monster of envy and jealousy threatens to take over, I remind myself "Comparison is the thief of joy."

You get the idea - I'm a living, breathing Pinterest board of quotes.

But when day 19 took a sharp turn for the worse, no relevant inspiring words of wisdom were popping into my head. The quote bank was comin' up empty. Even my go-to, catch-all "Everything happens for a reason," wasn't doing the trick.

So the inspiration gods from above blessed me with the Country Strong remix, and I've been humming "perspective is everything" ever since.

So, long story short, I accidentally and permanently deleted every single file from my laptop this morning. Every single document, photo, note, screenshot, invoice, project, video... you get it. After almost an hour chatting with Apple support, it became painfully clear they were never coming back (the files, not the support. Although I'm sure they wanted to run away, too).

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Pull my hair out. Throw my computer at the wall. Jump off a cliff. (Props to Daniel, the Apple Genius assisting me in the chatroom, for not calling the authorities when I expressed these exact sentiments but with many more !!!!!s)

For someone in the middle of a job search, blog/vlog experiment, soul searching journey - wiping my computer clean felt like the worst possible thing that could happen. The old Caroline - always on edge, high strung, stressed out - would've lost her mind. This Caroline still lost her mind. But for a much shorter time.

I remained calm. Thought logically. And made moves to recover whatever I could from Dropbox, email, etc. Then, I moved on.

I thought about how lucky I am. To have something like this to complain about. I mean, I'm a professional passion seeker complaining about losing her cover letter drafts and iMessage screenshots. Everything is ok.

There are people (in my city, not just some far away country) wondering where their next meal is coming from. There are parents in England mourning the recent, inexplicable death of their kids. There are so many horrific things happening in the world, and me losing my laptop files is not one of them.

Perspective is something I think we could all use a little more of. It's so easy to blow things out of proportion. To make mountains out of molehills. In a situation like mine, it's important to A) acknowledge, yeah - this sucks, but a lot of things suck a whole lot worse, then B) remind myself there is nothing I can do about it, and C) gain some perspective and move on. The end.