CCHF Shalom Challenge Day Five: The Tragedy Check: A Surprisingly Useful Frustration Tool
| Today’s challenge: Run the Tragedy Check 🔎 Next time someone gets you frustrated, ask yourself: Tragedy or nuisance? When it’s not tragedy, don’t sacrifice your relationships or your peace of mind by freaking out. |
| Transcript |
| If you’ve lived for more than a few hours on this planet, you’ve definitely learned that people will disappoint you. It’s frustrating. But… …there’s a magic mind-pill to take to avoid that frustration. Listen to this story ⬇⬇⬇ On the way back from Eretz Yisroel, the Levy’s flew through Moscow to New York. An hour after departure, the pilot began speaking to the passengers in heavily-accented English.They couldn’t make out too many words except for “small mechanical problem” and “fuel dump” but it did not. sound. good. The plane was dumping fuel to prevent a serious problem, then heading back to Moscow for an emergency landing.The Levys took out their Tehillim in preparation for the landing. Baruch Hashem, the plane landed safely back in Moscow, but what followed next was a series of frustrations… …waiting for another plane … a mean bus ride around the airport … the driver unable to find the plane …Through it all the Levys smiled. After a 28-hour trip, they finally got back to NY. They got on the shuttle to take them back to their car… and then the shuttle driver couldn’t find their car. Round and round they went aimlessly searching for it. They could have lost it. They were justified in losing it. But they didn’t. Because as Mrs. Levy said: “Today, at 30,000 feet, I learnt there’s a big difference between tragedy… and nuisance.” What could’ve happened, what almost happened up in the air — that was tragedy. Everything else? Just nuisance. Often when people disappoint us, we code their behavior as a tragedy. 💲 Then we overpay for that thought in anger, suffering, pain. 💲💲 Worse yet, we damage our relationship with an over-the-top reaction. All because we coded it as tragedy. We’re overpaying! |
