What happens when things don’t go according to plan? How do you react when your grand adventure falls flat on its face?

My wife and I purchased some porridge at the store recently. Excitedly, we prepared it for breakfast a few days later. Since we have not yet mastered the metric system, we managed to make twice as much as we needed to. Since we have also not yet mastered the hodge-podge of cooking utensils our apartment came equipped with, we managed to burn that double portion. With a generous helping of sugar I ate mine and was not horrified with the results. My wife, however, has not had the *ahem* educational *ahem* experience of initially learning to cook over a campfire without the foresight to bring spare food. She was quite disappointed with the results.

In the end, everything worked out well. We tried again the next day with much better results. Now we look forward to our porridge, it’s a great way to start off a cold and over-cast day.

When your adventure doesn’t work out as you planned, how do you react? Do you give up and remain in a sour mood, dampening your fellow adventurers’ spirits? Perhaps you just shrug it off and continue doggedly to the next stage of your plan. I suggest that you seek the silver lining; there is almost always a good point to any mishap. We did not realize that the directions for the hob (stove) were for two servings until we made it and realized that we had far more than we could eat. Since it was burned, we did not feel bad about throwing the “extra” out. If it has been made properly we would have tried to eat all of it, making ourselves miserable. The burn actually worked out in our favor.

I know it can be hard to find the silver lining, especially if you are cold, wet, lost, hungry or otherwise inconvenienced. Keep in mind that this is only one small part of the adventure, don’t let it overwhelm you. There is still more to do, time to do it in, and other adventures to have!