It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind, that determines which way we will go in life.  –Jim Rohn

The day started off so perfectly.  A beautiful, crisp Christmas morning.  Presents under the tree.  Delicious egg casserole. Then an afternoon rally as The Clarks headed out to the airport for a quick trip to see my brother and his family down in Miami.  What could go wrong?

For the first time in the history of our family travels, we were early to the airport and sailed through security.  With time to spare, we all gathered for a leisurely airport meal and waxed poetically about our impending good fortune.  In fact, things were going so smoothly, I felt the need to temper everyone’s expectations:

“Everything is going our way right now.  But let’s be prepared to face a few bumps along the journey.  Remember, we are in this together.”

Why?  Somebody should have knocked me out before I ever opened my mouth.

Just as we finished our meal, we got the first alert that our flight was delayed one hour.  No problem, just a little bump.  Then we got another alert.  One hour.  Hmmm.  Then another.  Gulp.  After six hours at the airport, we were finally at our gate and our flight was 15 minutes from boarding.  Then came the final swing of the Grim Reaper Traveler’s Scythe:

“Ladies and gentlemen, Flight 2040 has been canceled.  The next available flight out is December 30th. Your baggage will be returned on Carousel 13.”

Um, that’s it?  As if leaving 5 days later was a perfectly reasonable alternative.  Thank you for flying the friendly skies!

Every family has their crossroads moment.  This was ours.  Should we go home and lick our wounds?  Should we pivot to another, closer location?  Or should we drive 1,100 miles with 4 (relatively) grown children in a dilapidated 2013 Yukon?

Road trip!  

Little did we know that this deflated feeling of exhaustion and uncertainty was as good as it was going to get on this road trip.  We powered through six, silent mind-numbing hours to the booming metropolis of Lumberton, North Carolina.  After a brief mid-dawn respite in a roadside motel, we opted NOT to take tour of the historic downtown, and barreled south toward Miami.  But hideous traffic and family dissension derailed us once again.  Should we turn around in Savannah, Georgia and limp back to Lumberton for that historic tour?  It seemed appealing at the time.  Ultimately, we committed to continuing south, only to hit a mini-monsoon and torrential rain for the final hundred miles of the trip.  And fifteen hours later, we arrived, soaked and delirious in beautiful Miami Beach.

And the best part about this road trip?  Eventually, we had to drive back.  The horror!

The reality is that we ended up shaking off the misfortune.  The weather cleared, our moods and attitude changed, and we had a blast re-connecting with my brother and his family.

But the question still needs to be asked:  Did we make the right decision?

We Have to Keep Hope Alive

There are all types of cliches to help us cope when surviving an experience like this:

That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Someday, we’ll look back on these times and laugh.

And all of them have a grain of truth.  But they don’t always apply.  Sometimes, difficult challenges make us weaker.  Sometimes, we are better off not taking a shot.  Sometimes, we’ll look back on tough times and cry.  Not every hardship holds a lesson.  Sometimes, adversity brings out the worst in us.

So how do we draw valuable lessons from despair?  How do we turn heartbreak into resilience?  It starts with perspective in the moment.  It takes a lot of practice and patience, but we have to try and stay calm when the world is crashing around us.  Of course, we can have our moments of anger and emotion.  We are human and can’t always be stoic and contained.  But we can’t make rash decisions that will permanently damage our relationships. We can’t take adverse action that will tarnish our legacy.  We have to keep the bigger picture in mind even when the pressure is on.  We have to see the possibility of better times and act with that sliver of hope in mind.  We need to keep hope alive even when everything is stacked against us.

We Have to Resist Negativity

It is still too soon to know if we made the right decision to ever head south.  I have a sneaking suspicion that time and distance will take some sting out of the road trip.  But it was not a Norman Rockwell moment.  But even in the darkest moments of the adventure, we never said anything that couldn’t be unsaid.  We didn’t turn on each other in a way that we couldn’t recover.  We knew deep down it was not a life or death situation.  We at least left ourselves the possibility to grow stronger from the experience.  And that is all we can ask for in life.

Think about the difficult moments we face.  Even in the worst of the storm, we have to keep our heads.  We can’t give into the negativity and swirling pressure.  It’s okay to fail and suffer as long as we protect our relationships and maintain perspective.  We have to keep open the possibility of looking back on surviving these moments with some amount of pride and even joy.  Even road trips straight from hell.