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The Perspective’s Guide to Being an Idiot

By Gary Vurnum

We looked at each other...and just burst out laughing.

The doctor gave my wife and I one of those 'looks' as if to say "What planet are you on?"

"You realise that your daughter will have to have a plaster cast from her ankle to her hip for 8 weeks?" he carried on.

My daughter Katie was about four at the time - and had slipped (believe it or not) on a sheet of paper on the living room floor that morning.

An x-ray up on the 'light box' in the hospital showed a broken ankle. My wife wiped a tear from her eye - a tear of laughter!

The doctor had never seen anything like it. He was used to tears...but he had never had any parents literally falling off of their chairs in front of him because they were laughing so hard.

People began to look at us as we tried to regain our composure.

The doctor walked away muttering to himself as I carried Katie over to a bench to have her plaster cast put on. She was loving every minute - it wasn't too often that she got to see a different hospital.

You're probably think what cruel parents we are...and well, you're entitled to your opinion.

But what both you and the doctor didn't know was that the day before, our son Connor had almost stopped breathing for good.

So we couldn't believe our luck when we watched in slow motion as Katie had slipped on that sheet of paper.

Doesn't that put our reactions a little bit more into perspective?

We had two ways of dealing with it:
Let our 'bad luck' consume us and make our lives miserable.

Or

Laugh at the sheer disbelief of how these things always seem to happen to us!

What would you have chosen?

I've learned (the hard way) that it's not what happens to us that shapes our lives...it's how we react to what happens that determines how 'good' our lives are.

It's human nature to dwell on the negatives and forget about the positives - yet you can beat the system if you really want to.

The next time you feel depressed about how 'bad' your life is, ask yourself these questions:

1) Where does this 'problem' fall in the grand scheme of my life?
2) What's the worst thing that can happen because of it?
3) Why am I letting it 'get to me'?
4) What lesson can I learn from it?
5) Why am I talking to myself?

Sorry - the last one was in there just to put a little perspective on how serious some of these 'major' problems are in our lives.

If you don't let the little things get to you, you will find it much easier to deal with the big things when they come along (which they will).

Just don't tell that doctor I told you. He just thinks that I'm an idiot!

To our Success!

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Gary Vurnum has quit his full-time job to devote himself to his family and his self-development. His life turned around after the birth of his severely disabled son, and he now wants to share with others the tools he used to remain positive during the worst time of his life. His life-changing ebook "The Science of Success" is available from http://www.scienceofsuccess.com
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