Stuck

At some point, everyone gets stuck.

Raise your hand if you have ever been writing an essay, and you find yourself staring at the page for 10 minutes in the middle of your second body paragraph. Raise your hand if you have ever been working on a project, and you just walk away from it for a while because you need to try to think of new ideas for it. Raise your hand if your car has ever run out of gasoline miles from a gas station. All of these situations, among countless others, are exactly what we don't want when we're trying to do something or go somewhere. We don't want to be stuck.

Today I was balancing a checkbook (Please, hold the applause) for my dad's company. We use an online reconciliation program where the user can make edits themselves after collecting data from the bank accounts online. Some things come through messy, so they need to be fixed. Halfway through, I was trying to find a certain transaction, but couldn't. There was supposed to be something that was causing the bank not to match the program, but I didn't see it anywhere. I looked for what seemed like a year. I was stuck. And trust me, being stuck feels a lot worse when its because of something like a checkbook.

But we don't stay stuck forever.

People all have the unique ability to get themselves out of holes. It doesn't matter how steep the climb is, if you want out of the hole, you can manage it. We are able to finish essays even if we stop for a little bit in the middle of writing them. We can think of new ideas if we put our minds to it for a long enough time. We can call for help when we run out of gas, and we make it back home before it gets too cold. And I did indeed find the missing transaction.

Sometimes, being stuck for a while is what makes the end product better. Suppose during the middle of an essay  (that you planned everything through on), you got stuck. You went into it knowing every idea that you wanted down on the paper, but you forgot some of them. You're stuck, and now need to brainstorm. You then think of something (something that, had you just written everything you were prepared with, would never have existed), which ends up putting a huge positive spin on your writing. Bingo. Being stuck helped you out.

And it makes sense. When something bad happens to someone, yes, there may be bad consequences. But so many more good consequences can come from it. A coworker might laugh at you mockingly for having a stain on your shirt - but it was just in time for you to clean it before you walked in to a meeting with your boss. The teacher might call the class in from recess early, but now you will keep your new sneakers out from the rain storm that was on its way. It's better to take a blow now when you can take it than later, when the situation may be different, and you can't take it.

And hey, me not knowing what to write about for a blog post today might cause me to have something to write about for a blog post today. I should get stuck more often.