Life Lessons* From Plumbing

Last week there was a burst pipe near my home and we had no water for almost 24 hours. There were lots of life lessons to be learned throughout that day: appreciate what you have when you have it, be grateful for being part of the privileged few who usually have round the clock access to clean water in their own home, don’t take creature comforts for granted, etc.

I knew there must be a bigger lesson but it wasn’t easy to see until a few days later when things had not yet returned to ‘normal’ on the plumbing front. Air that was still trapped made the pipes sounded like the grumbling tummy of a hungry elephant. The water pressure was unpredictable. Getting the mix of hot and cold right was an adventure in temperature control.

I’ll admit that I had a sense of humour failure more than once. I wanted things to be back to how they ‘should’ be.

It was only when I caught myself whining about my disappointing shower (Really, Judy? You live in a country where the vast majority of people have to walk miles to fetch water for cooking and cleaning and you are complaining about the water pressure in your morning shower? Get over yourself!!!), that I saw what I needed to see (other than that I should stop being such an appalling brat):

I wanted things to go back to how they were immediately.

I wasn’t paying attention to the processes that needed to happen after such an event. I didn’t think about what a large knock the whole system had taken. I was blind to the adjustment period that is necessary after a change.

I just wanted things to be the same as always – right now. Or sooner.

And isn’t that what we all do? We experience a major change or disruption in some area of our lives and, rather than giving ourselves the time and space to settle down again into a new normal, we try to rush things back to how they used to be. We complain when things take longer than (we think) they should. We take any ensuing discomfort personally.

We just want things to go back to how they ‘should’ be.

We don’t honour the process – or our responses to it.

The lessons that I learned from the great burst pipe adventure are:

• Allow time for the dust to settle after a big change or disruption,
• Expect to be uncomfortable for a while,
• Don’t take the discomfort personally (or try very hard not to),
• You will be comfortable in a new ‘normal’ sooner than you think.

 

*Every day of the week I post a Life Lesson on Twitter and Facebook. They arise from my observations of life, the world and the human condition.

Tags: Change | change is hard | change pain | coach | discomfort | disruption | life lessons | normal | take time