Many times I have driven by a motorist stranded in his vehicle alongside the highway.  Sometimes the driver is wandering curiously around the vehicle as though searching for an overt obstruction; other times, he is lying beneath the vehicle apparently intent upon remedying a flat tire or a mechanical defect.  Whatever the eventuality (and aside from the predominantly forlorn nature of the sight, it is often impossible at high speed to discern the precise problem), I have always whistled mournfully upon seeing someone in despair. Never however have I authentically imagined that my turn is next.

Today – with stunning pronouncement – I had a flat tire while riding my Ecolo Cycle Pronto. The flagrant irony of the event is not that it happened (I accept the gamble); rather that it happened within minutes of having been asked by WRT to join him and his bride Gail on the patio for a mid-afternoon confab.  After our discourse and as soon as I had careered the trike off the property, I immediately heard the tell-tale flapping of one of the rear tires.  Sure enough, upon stopping to give the tire a squeeze, it was flat.  I shamelessly continued to ride the trike (this time employing the electric button) home.  I had already shared with my erstwhile hosts that getting to the bathroom is a challenge for me.  Indeed I am confident that both WRT and Gail were surprised to discovery the extent of my immobility given my appearance of Olympic athleticism on the trike (though pointedly while seated).

The point of this trifling chronicle – not to lapse into the vernacular – is that “stuff happens”.  Nobody is spared the sometimes inexpressible violation of things. Though I haven’t a particularly broad repertoire of hardship, I have naturally learned that overcoming the unsettling moments of life is both axiomatic and preferred.  Preferred for obvious reasons; axiomatic because the alternative is downhill or out of the picture.  Nonetheless not everyone readily embraces the opportunity to deal with setbacks.

Although a flat tire on a tricycle is philosophically mundane, it is yet illustrative of the remedial mechanics associated with disappointment.  The first issuance of the problem is the decision to acknowledge the difficulty – and, as quickly, to begin to resolve it. This calculated process may however require time.  Accordingly the next step in addressing disenchantment is to formulate a new or modified version of the initial performance.

Once we position ourselves directly aside the problem, we are upon a new threshold which – while facilitating the correction of an existing problem – further enables us to consider what alternatively might be done until the task is complete. Directing one’s attention elsewhere is not abandonment but adoption; that is, putting one matter on a new plateau while engaging another. Merely visualizing the engagement of each is sufficient to expedite the complexity of both.