In 2019 I started planning a trip to Australia and New Zealand for my husband and me. We picked September 2020. Remember what happened in 2020? Something called a pandemic? Yeah, the trip was canceled, and understandable so. I decided not to even try to reschedule for a 2021 trip because things were too uncertain.
But I thought scheduling in 2021 for travel in September 2022 would be safe. The trip we wanted was still being offered. We planned other events around those dates, including our 25th wedding anniversary party. I booked flights months in advance, and since it was before gas prices went up, I got pretty good prices. With the pandemic and Australia and New Zealand just opening their borders I didn’t know how long it would take to get visas, so I took care of that as soon as allowed. Everything looked good. I did everything right.
Then, four months prior to the start of the tour, the tour company changed the dates.
We couldn’t travel with the new dates and still attend our own anniversary party (which is rather important to us). So, we rescheduled the trip for spring, 2023, which was the earliest time that worked for us.
This frustrated me immensely. I understood perfectly the need to cancel the trip in 2020. The tour group offered no good reason for changing the dates in 2022, however. This change will cost us quite a bit more money for the tour and flights. Our Australia visa will expire days before we get there and so I need to apply, and pay for, new visas. I put a great deal of work and effort into the trip and much of that is now wasted.
I think what frustrated me the most was that I did everything right, someone at the tour company decided to make a change (why?), and doing everything right no longer mattered.
My perspective of this situation was, understandably, negative.
Eventually, however, I realized that there are many people in this world who have done everything right and horrible things have still happened to them. By comparison, a canceled trip is nothing.
At that point I started making a conscious effort to change my perspective, to at least identify the positives of the situation. There is still a trip with a great itinerary to take. We are still capable of taking the trip. We can still afford to take the trip. I have the time to redo the things that need to be done. We are fortunate to be able to do this.
Perspective is so important. I’m sharing this story in the hopes that it might help you look at your situations with a different, more positive, and perhaps, more accurate perspective. And to remind you that sometimes we have to make a conscious effort to change our perspective. It doesn’t always automatically happen.
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