A Matter of Perspective

I always dreamed of sailing down the Nile but fulfilling that dream took a little bit more work than I'd anticipated. Meg and I arranged to travel a few days on a felucca. The boat owner told us there'd be three other people traveling with us and everything was set to go but, unfortunately the mast on his boat was broken. Meg and I volunteered to spend the day helping him fix his boat. Less than an hour into the endeavor the other travelers stopped back and also agreed to help. They were all solo travelers - a guy named Conner from Ireland, John from New Zealand, and Daub from France.

Fixing the boat was hard work. The pieces were very heavy and required many hands to lift. Turns out that more than just the mast needed to be fixed, but together we pulled it off. It took lots of sweat and many hours but it was a wonderful unanticipated team building exercise. When I dreamed of how I would spend my days in Egypt, it definitely wasn't this. But, this memory is one of my favorites. It was unexpected. You felt a sense of accomplishment after a full day of work and I already felt very close to the crew and our three new travel companions before we'd even set sail. They all turned out to be super wonderful people.

After the mast was up and working, and the boat was stocked and ready to go. The owner offered to feed us dinner. He laid out a blanket on the dock by the boat and had some cucumbers, bread, tomatoes, tabouli, hummus and olives. We sat there on the ground together and watched the sun setting on the Nile. As I ate, a rat walked by our blanket and there were bugs on the food. But, I remember very specifically the thought I had when the rat walked by. The thought was, "I'm so lucky." I had just had the most amazing day with wonderful people. I was eating food that was generously offered to me to repay our efforts, and I was laughing with new friends as I watched the reflection of the brilliant colored setting sun on the Nile waters.

At home, if I was having dinner and a rat walked by, I would've had a different reaction. I realized though while I was sitting there, that discomfort and unhappiness might sometimes be a matter of perspective. Obviously, not all the time. There is genuinely bad stuff that happens that sucks no matter how you look at it. But, I think there is also a lot of stuff that makes us unhappy, angry, and bothered that might not necessarily need to cause unhappiness. It might sometimes be a matter of choosing what we focus on. I know that I am a better person when I am happy. In this moment - one of happiest moments and memories - I changed the thought of hard work, sweat, and losing a day of siteseeing to spending the day making new friends, helping a man fix his livelihood, and spending a day seeing the real everyday Aswan and its people. I changed the rat and bugs to the satisfaction of eating the meal that was offered to me while watching one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd seen over a river I've wanted to travel to since I was 7 and first learned of Egypt.

I've carried that life lesson with me ever since. Everyday, I think about how lucky I am and the small things that make me happy. I always focus on those things to anchor myself in a positive position. Dew in the morning, pumpkin spice in fall, Christmas socks, cuddling with my children watching a TV show, my husband making me laugh, sharing smiles with strangers, someone holding the door open for me in public. They are little things, but there are so many of them! So much happiness all around if you just choose to grab ahold of it.