Track 9 - Big (uh) O

Adversity can tell you a lot about a person. Everyone handles it differently. An example from my life would be when I went camping when I was 18. That night we had a couple uninvited visitors in the shape of black bears. They were brushing by the tent, sniffing and lapping the tongues around. I thought for sure they saw Haribo or Black Forrest printed on our tent and I instantly thought it was payback for all the delicious gummy cousins of these two I had devoured. The interesting part of this traumatic experience was the demonstration of different personalities. I dealt with the stress by attempting to be funny, lighten the situation a tad bit and ease the tension. One girl dealt with it by crying unconsolably. A young man I didn't know very well became rude and bossy. And finally, one guy showed courage (at the time I thought it was masked by stupidity) and selflessness. He informed the rest of us that if a bear opened the tent, he was going to throw himself at it while the rest of us escaped. Fortunately, it never came to that but it was an interesting sociological experiment.

Recently I took the short 530 mile drive from Salt Lake City to Denver to visit the family. In the passenger seat was my navigator, a special young lady that was brave enough to accept an invitation to hang with my parentals and me for the weekend. Here is the tie back, 25 miles outside of Laramie, WY we heard a currrrplunk and smoke billowed out from underneath my beloved Subaru. I love my car. I take good care of it. There was no reason why I should be mosquito dusting behind my car. Like it or not, we were broken down on the side of highway.

I got on the phone to call a tow truck and Miss MVP got on the phone too. Before I was off, she had found a mechanic that was open and had them committed to looking at my car that night. By the time we rolled up to the garage, it was 945 PM and we were going to be stuck in Laramie for the night. That's when I saw another side of my travel companion. Positivity. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Find the silver lining. Turn that frown upside down and smile that frown away. I was so impressed. Our plans were shot. We were stuck in a cowboy town with no car eating sandwiches from Wal-mart. I would have understood had we both been grouchy and frustrated. That wasn't the case.

I try to start people off in a positive light. Everyone starts OK with me. From there some people go up and others go down. Adversity lets us really see into who others are. Life is hard. It is full of trials and unexpected twists. It is how we handle these situations that make us who we are. At times I worry that my generation has had it too soft and we are a bunch of entitled little whiners wanting the whole world to pat us on the butt and say here you go kid, good job. It is refreshing each time that my theory is proven false.