“Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worse possible time, in the worse possible way.”~ Murphy’s Law

We’ve all experienced the “truth” of Murphy’s Law from time to time, haven’t we?

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Actually, Murphy’s Law is not entirely correct. Usually, it’s the worse possible time at the time because of the way we are thinking about whatever has gone wrong, and then increase that by how we are feeling about an event.

We can probably think of many occasions where at the time of a disaster, we were in a state of panic or frustration, but today, be able to look back at that event and say, “Wow, that was one of the best things that ever happened to me.”

My own posting to this blog has been limited in the past few days due to an event that seemed almost catastrophic - multiple problems with my PC. Having multiple problems made it difficult to troubleshoot. First, a wonky motherboard combined with a failing partition on a hard drive.

When panic sets in, you can make things worse during such situations. The best way to try to respond is to take a deep breath, take out a sheet of paper, and start writing out your observations precisely. Then list all the possible reasons that you can think of for what you are observing.

At the same time, don’t jump to any conclusions. Jumping to a conclusion too early in the process could have the motivation for trying to fix something in the wrong order and thereby possibly making a situation even worse. It is very easy to want to try to “fix” a situation quickly - but it is more important during times of possible catastrophe or disaster to not dwell upon your negative emotions about the event, but to realize that you are going to come up with a plan. And the best way to do this is on paper, no matter how well you think you will remember the steps you need to take when they are in your mind.

The next important realization to have is that you might need to adjust your plan if you receive new information that you did not have when you began to write out your observations.

Thirdly, keep in mind that life will go on, regardless of the outcome of the situation. You’ll still love your loved ones, and they will still love you.

In my case over the past few days, this meant taking a hold of the panic that began to set in when I realized the problem with my PC was worse than I had originally thought. I discovered I had made an error in strategy with regard to my backup plan and feared the worse: That years worth of data had been lost. However, this fear was not to be realized - I had made some smart decisions previously about my hard drives and how they should be partitioned. The worst I could lose was one month’s worth of data in an application that I could have re-entered - although it would have taken time.

In the end, it appears that I’ve lost no unrecoverable data. I’ve also learned some things from the experience as well. Sure, it was frustrating that the event took place. Yes, it did put me behind in some of my tasks that I had planned to complete.

Sometimes, it can be frustrating if we allow that, to be in a situation where we have long periods of time just waiting to see if an action is going to fix something. And this is an especially good time to test our patience - and realize that at that moment, there is nothing further that can be done right now - so what else can we do?

I had periods of time where I was in a “waiting” mode - sometimes a couple of hours at a time when utilities were being run. Realize that you do have a choice as to how you spend that time: You can sit and wait and for that extended period of time, be worried and fearful - or you can do other things.

In my case, when I realized that worrying and fear was doing me no good, I thought I might as well get in my “me time” that I wrote about previously. I went for an enjoyable long walk with my son. I also went for a brisk walk on my own. I wrote a beautiful woman who means the world to me a letter.

I organized some piles of paper on my desk and did some filing. Of course, curiosity would get the better of me at times, and I’d be checking in on how the testing and repairing utilities were doing - but realizing that I could take control of my time was vital to me in being able to respond to further unexpected issues that did arise.

If you have a situation that appears to be catastrophic or perhaps not quite catastrophic but frustrating, here’s some ideas for you in steps to take:

  • Make a list ON PAPER of all your observations about the situation. Refuse to make any emotional judgments about your observations, good or bad. Just write everything you are seeing or everything you know at that time about the situation. Sometimes, we jump to conclusions and then emotionally respond to that conclusion, when our conclusion was incorrect.
  • Face your fear of the worse possible outcome. Determine now your fall back plan should the worse thing that could happen does happens, . This has two benefits: 1) It prepares you psychologically that there are always options and things you can control. 2) It keeps you “goal oriented” - you have a goal you are going to achieve, things will go wrong, but you’re going to keep striving to achieve your goal. 3) It prepares you psychologically to move ahead on to the next step knowing that you’ve faced your worry and fear.
  • Go over your list of observations and come up with a plan. While creating your plan, constantly ask yourself, “If I do this, will this affect anything else negatively and cause more time to be spent or other damage to something else?” Think of all the possible effects doing something might have.
  • Test your plan if you can before you implement it to see what possible effects that you have overlooked will occur.
  • Talk over your plan with someone else. Sometimes, the simple act of going over your plan with another person will help you think of things that might even make the problem much simpler to solve than what you originally thought. I can think of many times where I had a plan in place that would have worked, but was able to come up with something much simpler simply be talking through the plan with another person.
  • Make sure your plan is written out on paper in a step by step format. I can’t stress this enough. Keeping your plan in your mind makes it too easy to forget to do an important step.

Keep in mind that the worse possible outcomes that we fear rarely happen. Think back over your life to things you have feared and ask yourself if what you feared always came true - I think you’ll discover that fear has held you back on doing things many times, and kept you from achieving your goals. What we fear the most seldom is the result when we take action toward a goal.

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