One of my favorite songs, Michael Buble's “I Still Haven't Met You Yet,” includes the line, “I guess it's half timing, and the other half's luck.” I don't believe in luck. Thanks to my life and business development coach, I believe you make your own luck by being prepared to accept opportunities when they arise, and by always being open to the inspiration the Universe (i.e., God, if you're religious) may hand you.
“Luck,” if you insist on calling it that, also shows up when you follow those little voices in your head, which I like to call “intuition.” And that voice, on Saturday afternoon, told me TJ, Ashley and I needed vanilla milkshakes.
The story begins even earlier than that...
I hadn't intended to go out Saturday, but empty bottles and cans were piling up in the garage and I decided it was time to finally return them to collect my deposit money. ($7-and-change, at a nickel a bottle -- I had procrastinated long enough!) And, as the baby birds in this story will learn, procrastination is a b---.
I was driving home from Wal-mart and took the road that went by my old apartment. Although I haven't lived there in five years, my brain went on auto-pilot. I missed the turn to get on the parkway that would lead us directly home. But I knew this area and I knew if I drove a mile I could get on at a later exit, which took me and Ashley right by an ice cream parlor. I'd had ice cream there a few times when we lived at the old place, so we decided to stop. Although it was incredibly windy, it was a warm 70 degrees -- perfect for ice cream.
I ordered two vanilla milkshakes (for me and TJ) and a cup of vanilla ice cream (for Ashley). The whole thing took us about 10 minutes. (Yes, that's an inordinate amount of time to wait for ice cream... I still manifest incompetent clerks in my
life, but I'm not complaining.) From there, we had a five minute drive home.
When I got home, I realized I couldn't turn into the driveway. There was a tree blocking the path. TJ has been cutting down trees across our property for the past few weeks, but I couldn't understand why he left this one across our driveway when he knew I'd be coming home. I parked in the street and got out of the car. That's when I noticed the limb was not a clean cut, but had broken off.
“What happened?” I shouted up to TJ when I walked in the door.
“What does it look like? The branch of the tree fell down.”
“When did that happen?”
“About 10, 15 minutes ago.”
Considering missing the turn took me a bit out of the way, and our entire detour took about 15 minutes, you can draw conclusions about where we would have been 15 minutes earlier if I had not missed my turn and decided to get ice cream.
I do feel bad for the family of baby birds that had been living in the tree. TJ hadn't cut down this tree -- even though he knew there was a strong possibility it could fall and land in our driveway or on our car -- because he was waiting for the family of baby birds in the nest to take flight. They didn't make it.
If I choose to draw a life lesson or moral from this story, beyond the importance of trusting your intuition (even if it leads you to calorie-laden dairy products), it's that procrastination can cost you your life. Fly from the nest when you have the opportunity-- even if you don't think you're ready! It could very well beat the alternative.
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