As a traveling trainer over the past two years, I have frequently observed just how little control we really have over things. So many little things can go wrong, and some trainers go out of their way to ensure they are fully prepared for every little contingency. Others, however, seem to revel in walking into the situation with a gleeful readiness to deal with whatever happens. I find myself more in the latter camp: it is actually quite liberating to realize just how many options become available when things don’t go as I planned.

I arrived in Fort McMurray without my bag (thanks Air Canada), so I needed to buy rudimentary supplies. Air Canada said they might have the bag by Tuesday, which meant I had to buy enough clothes to last me at least a couple of days. When I asked the receptionist at the hotel, she promptly said, “Oh, we have a WalMart! It’s next to Staples, just turn right at the Safeway.”

My sense of intrepidness was immediately dashed, but at least I knew I had options! In town, I decided to check out a local Canadian retailer called Zeller’s instead of WalMart. And, while browsing the aisles, I was struck with just how much familiarity we build with little things in our lives: I found myself missing my toothbrush, my shaving razor, my deodorant, as I aimlessly browsed through the many selections on display. Small things, really, but when they go missing it’s disorienting, and a good exercise in relinquishing illusions of control!

Armed with the necessary toiletries, I made it back to the hotel and proceeded to have dinner at the hotel restaurant. In the middle of dinner my cell phone rings (yes, I have cell service up here!) and it’s our client from Suncor, calling because they’ve had a lot of problems installing our software in preparation for the training. With the two hour time difference, our company headquarters in Massachusetts was closed and the only technical support resource they had was… me, just about to dive into my main course of spaghetti and meatballs.

With hurried apologies to the waiter, I paid up quickly and took my plate up to my room so I could get to my laptop and talk our client through their installation with the hope of finishing my dinner later.

An hour later, with both of us frustrated at the software’s stubborn installation errors (and the total lack of documentation on said errors), I decided the issue could wait until the morning when we could call the technical support line. By now it was getting late, and I had already been up since 3 am.

Tired, sleepy, hungry, and grumpy, as I munched on my cold spaghetti I reflected on how life on the road has helped me learn to be comfortable with uncertainty. Our group’s motto is “Suck it up and make it happen” and sure enough, these two years I have seen a lot of that. It has helped me learn a lot about life: Life is random, and it’s often stressful trying to force it to fit into my plans. I took a mental step back, took a deep breath, and decided to appreciate the variety that comes with uncertainty. It was more liberating to embrace the chaos, plus by this time the spaghetti in my stomach was filling me up nicely.

The next day, we got the problem resolved in the classroom in the morning while on the phone with the technical support staff, the computers worked well, and in the evening I went to the airport and Air Canada had my bag!! Yay!

Here’s to another fun-filled day of randomness!