Good Luck. Bad Luck. Who Knows?

Sometimes things do not go as planned.  I had finished a presentation at about 10:30 am and was feeling good about the three-hour drive across Florida via Alligator Alley to get home.  I figured I would be home by 2:00 pm and have the rest of the afternoon to relax and decompress. 

About two exits before the start of Alligator Alley, my dashboard lit up and showed that one of my tires was rapidly losing air.  Yikes.  I pulled to the side of a busy stretch of road and got out to inspect.  Yep, I had a flat.  My first thought was to reach out to AAA which I did. However, they informed me that they could only tow or change to my spare which my car does not have. 

Instead, my car has a zero flat tire which means it gets low but won’t get onto the rims.  I realized I needed to get to a tire shop.  Luckily, as I looked at Apple Maps, there were three tire shops within a five-mile radius of my current location.

I put on my hazards and drove to the closet one.  They told it would be a three-hour wait just to be seen.  I left and slowly drove to the next shop.  They were able to get me in. However, the tire I needed was at a different shop 25 miles away.  They would go pick up the tire and change it for me.  Awesome. 

I ended up staying at the shop for four hours.  This is where mindset matters.  I could have wallowed in my bad luck.  Instead, I saw this as good luck.  Had the flat occurred 25 miles later, I would have been in the barren wasteland swamps of Alligator Alley which has something like one exit every 50 miles. 

Had there not been three tire shops around this area I would have had no choices.  In addition, I had my laptop which is really my office, and I was able to get a bunch of work done. 

Things worked out well.  I got home around 7:00 pm.  I had dinner with my family. I just did not have the convenience of my own office. 

The point is good luck, bad luck, who knows.  We can just make the best out of whatever situation we are given.  I was so grateful that I got the flat where I did rather than stressing about the extended time it would take to get home.  I appreciated the guardian angels looking out for me.  Good luck, bad luck, who knows.