In my life, when things go wrong, I tend to play out the worst case scenario. It used to drive my Dad bananas. Over and over, he'd tell me: "Only a fool bleeds before they're cut."
This week, I was that fool.
On Tuesday, hell broke loose at my restaurant. The hood came in, but it was too big, so I demoed a wall that I had just put in to make it fit. The HVAC crew who delivered the hood damaged my wood floors as they brought it in. Then a lumber delivery didn't show up. Then my 100 year-old hammered glass window broke. And when I thought it couldn't get worse..
A building inspector showed up to say that the fire department thought I may need a $50,000 sprinkler system.
DAMNIT.
My mind began to race. I called my lawyer. I called a friend's lawyer. I called a friend's friend's lawyer. I called the Mayor's Chief of Staff. I called my architect. I called the Economic Development team. I called the City's inspector.
(Somewhere in there, I called my husband and told him to pour me a queen-size goblet of wine.)
Long story short, I played out every worst case scenario in the books about how the Fire Department would make me install a sprinkler system that I couldn't afford, thus thwarting my whole restaurant project. My family would go bankrupt. We'd have no place to live. The kids would go hungry. We'd have to put the dog in a shelter.
Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night.
The next day, the Fire Department showed up. And they couldn't have been nicer. We came to a compromise that would allow me not to have to put in the sprinkler system. All would be just fine. Nothing was wrong.
And to think how much blood I lost without a single wound.
Reader, take it from this bleeder: you're going to get hurt out there in the world, but you don't have to let your own imagination hurt you. Let things play out on their own. If there's a problem that feels scary to you, maybe there's an outcome with a solution that you didn't foresee. Maybe the worst case scenario isn't going to happen after all.
I leave you this picture of my 2 year-old eating a popsicle in his tree house today, without a care in the world. Fancy free. All of his scenarios are good ones. He's my hero this week. See you next Sunday.