Last month my fiancé and I took a trip to Tracy, California to go see a family wedding. We flew from Kamloops to Vancouver, Vancouver to San Francisco. When we reached Vancouver the employee said our bags would go straight to San Francisco, but when we got to San Francisco neither of our bags showed up. The worker said don’t worry your bags will come tomorrow, so we went to Target to get basic necessities for the night. The next day our bags still didn’t show up and we were in a panic as we were there for an Indian wedding.

My fiancé checked Air Canada’s website and it said if your bags are lost or delayed each person within reason can spend up to $2300 each to buy the things they need for their trip. She needed Indian clothes, shoes, make up, etc. I needed dress clothes, dress shoes, regular clothes etc. We bought some clothes and necessities hoping our bags would show up that evening. Thursday was the same and nothing arrived. On our last day there (Friday) we waited until the afternoon and still nothing.

All of a sudden I started panicking. I kept thinking about how my luggage might be lost and stressing over the fact that we spent all this money and there is a possibility we might not get it back. All the scenarios were running rapidly in the midst of my mind and I kept thinking about the worst case scenarios. Living with stress and worry in my mind prevented me to live in the present, it prevented me to experience happiness, peace and joy.

I went for a walk to clear my mind, because for me being in solitude really helps me cope with my feelings and emotions. As I was walking a thought popped into my mind. Imagine if we had the power to project ourselves into the future and see the outcome to our problem we are experiencing in the present moment. And then it hit me. I was already doing exactly this, but the only difference was I was projecting myself into the future and thinking about the worst case scenario to my problem - I was being pessimistic. And then it hit me again. It takes the same amount of energy to be pessimistic than it does to be optimistic. The only difference is one makes you feel gloomy, negative and cynical while the other one makes you feel happy, confident and hopeful. It pays to be optimistic. I was already projecting myself into the future and thinking about the worst case scenario to my problem, why don’t I project myself into the future and think about the best case scenario by being optimistic. I thought to myself our luggage will come. Our luggage is not lost and we will get all of our money back. And as soon as I had those thoughts of belief, reassurance and optimism it felt like a massive load had been lifted off of me. I was myself again. I was happy, cheerful and a joy to be around. All it took was to change my level of thinking towards a situation that I had no control over.