When the fart hits the fan

Sometimes it feels like Shit Hits the Fan.  Yesterday was a good example.

I found out that an important house I own had a roof leak. So bad in fact it might destroy the whole roof. In the end, the roof saturated a bunch of the wood, a bunch of the insulation and a bunch of drywall.  In fact the whole F’ing thing might cost me 20k.

Later, as I’m talking to renters, I discover two other properties have roof leaks.  1 day, 3 roof leaks.  Then I discover a host of other issues I hadn’t known about.

Then I’m trying to get two flip houses to market on the same day to take advantage of the weekend showings and one of them is having a lot of issues (again, related to a worker issue).

To top it off, I’m trying to deal with all of this blind, since I’m out of town.

And then I took a breath and remembered:

I’m healthy.  My family is safe.  None of this affects my health or their safety.  I’m somewhere nice and warm.

In fact, I have three roof leaks…  That means I have three houses.  How amazing is THAT.

One of those issues is major?  My father and another worker stepped up and helped me work through a lot of those issues remotely and given another week, we will see what we can salvage.  In the end, it made me appreciate my father (and that worker) a lot.

Flip house behind schedule?  That means I have inventory for my business.  Inventory that hopefully will make money.  Good problems to have.  To top that off, my sister stepped in to cover all those finishing touches and made me really appreciate her over-the-top do-whatever-it-takes attitude.

I have good family.  I am so fortunate to have properties to even have these problems.  No one important in my life is at risk.  In fact, it’s the important people in my life that helped make these “bad” things better.

Sometimes I feel like I (and I think this when I hear people drivel about 1st world problems about their “bad job” or how Starbucks “screwed up their coffee”) lack perspective.  We have a roof over our heads.  Our kids slept in warm beds.  We aren’t starving or fighting for food for survival.  We have houses.  Nice ones.  Not concrete walls without doors and dirt floors.  We have it SOOO damn good.

Sometimes it’s good to step back and realize that shit you feel hit the fan, that was barely a fragrant fart.  And in the grand scheme of the rest of the world’s perspective, that “problem” is one a whole bunch of the world can only wish they had.

It feels better to be grateful.  We have so much to be grateful for.  Gratitude makes so much more sense.