Sometimes We Just Need to ask the world to meet us at chipotle

​Yesterday morning, someone sent an email to everyone in the state agency I work - all 6000 of us across the state of Virginia - asking for some simple assistance.

Then, someone among that 6000, trying to be nice, responded to EVERYONE in the email with an answer.

Then someone else responded. And someone else....

Then it turned a bit ugly. People receiving this now steady chain of emails started demanding that they be removed from the conversation, clearly not thinking through how unlikely it was that anyone would or could remove them from the thread.

Well that became a tidal wave of demand. Everyone started asking 6000 people to remove them from this electronic conversation. The removal requests started filling my email inbox faster than Ida filled rain gauges up and down the east coast this week.

I felt myself getting aggravated. VERY aggravated. And not because these emails kept popping up, but because of people. People who clearly didn't get that the aggravation they were asking to be removed from was the aggravation they were perpetuating by asking 6000 people to remove them from it 🤦‍♂.

Then something magical happened. Someone out there in Virginia saw this as a golden opportunity; he clearly had everyone's attention. So he said, "would anyone like to meet at Chipotle for lunch?"

I laughed - out loud - at the brilliance of it all. The brilliance of finding a way to turn something completely aggravating into something completely enjoyable.

Someone then responded to 6000 people, I'm not up for Chipotle, could we maybe do Waffle House instead? Then the food memes started flying. Laughing emojis. Someone even said, "thanks, I needed this so much. This is the most fun I've had all week."

Isn't the brain a wild ride? And isn't it awesome to know how much power we have to use it to look at life differently in mere seconds?

Maybe it's a reminder that sometimes we just have to stop and pause and give ourselves a chance to look at things differently. Maybe we need to pick something up and read it and laugh at it and force ourselves to look at things differently.

And maybe, just maybe - every once in awhile we need to be the one in an aggravating situation who is willing to ask that much needed question: "anyone want to meet at Chipotle for lunch?"