Life doesn’t follow our plans. It rarely asks for permission before throwing a curveball, and it certainly doesn’t wait for us to feel ready. When things go sideways, and they will, how we decide to respond matters more than we might realize. A simple shift in mindset from “why me?” to “now what!” can change everything. It moves you from victim to participant, from helpless to curious. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, it leads to stories you’ll tell for years.
A few years ago, I was in Mexico City with some friends, all of us serious foodies. We built the entire trip around incredible meals and long conversations over the wine we’d carefully selected and brought ourselves. We were in the middle of one of those perfect evenings where everything clicked: the food, the company, the conversation, and the rhythm of the event when a waiter knocked over my full glass of red wine. The glass didn’t just tip, it exploded. Wine was all over my shirt, my pants, and the table. The poor waiter looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor.
The manager showed up instantly, apologizing profusely, and tried to fix the problem. His first solution was a hotel t-shirt from the gift shop, hilariously small. His second try was marginally better but still unwearable. Finally, he returned with a chef’s jacket from the kitchen. It fit!!!
I could have been annoyed and let it derail the evening, but instead, since the restaurant happened to be in the hotel we were staying at, I went upstairs, changed my jeans, and came back to the table in my new chef’s jacket. Everyone laughed, and I even got a tour of the kitchen! We had a fantastic night. The best part? Months later, when one of those same friends threw a holiday party, I wore that chef’s jacket. Everyone cracked up. The spill had become part of our story; not the disaster that ruined dinner, but the thing that made it memorable.
That’s what making the best of it looks like. It’s not pretending to enjoy what you hate or insisting everything happens for a reason; it’s being in the moment and open to the possibility that the story doesn’t have to end with the spill. We spend so much time waiting for conditions to be right before we allow ourselves to be okay. Once things settle down, once we get through this hard part, then we’ll relax and enjoy ourselves. But life doesn’t pause for our readiness. There’s always something coming around the corner. The people who handle this well, adapting without bitterness and finding lightness in heavy moments, have figured out something important: we can’t control every plot twist, but we absolutely control how we play the scene.
This doesn’t mean minimizing real difficulties or pretending serious challenges aren’t serious. Not every spill can be fixed with a chef’s jacket. But even in genuinely hard situations, we often have more agency than we think. We might not be able to change what happened, but we can shape how we carry it forward. And often what we and others will remember is not the situation, but how we reacted to it.
We don’t get to choose every twist in our story, but we do get to choose what kind of story we tell. The best ones, I’ve found, usually include at least a few moments when everything went completely off script, and somehow, that made it even better.
“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” – Charles R. Swindoll
What’s your chef’s jacket story: the time when things went sideways, but you found a way to roll with it anyway? I’d love to hear it in the comments below.
Have a great weekend.
-“Chef” Vijay