Well, this is not the post I was planning on writing this evening….

We had a bit of a family pet emergency. Still not sure exactly what happened, but our family dog went into major intestinal distress, resulting in a late evening trip to the emergency veterinary hospital, where he is still resting. He was severely dehydrated with critically low blood pressure, but it appears he is now stable.

The kids were upset, as you can imagine. And so were my wife and I.

When we came home from the emergency room, we explained to the kids the seriousness of his condition, but that he was getting the care he needed. We were honest, frank, but calm.

I tend to go in two directions–either very calm or very hysterical. And I tend to be out of sync with the scale of the events: so I am more likely to be nuts over something small and very even-keeled in a major crisis.

I’m not sure exactly where things fell tonight on that spectrum. It was definitely scary for the kids to see their pet in such bad shape. But I managed to remain calm, and more importantly, communicate that calm to them.

The odd thing is: I can’t really think of a situation where being calm doesn’t help.

I still have lots of goings-on at work, with all sorts of opportunities for me to freak out. But the more I can approach these situations with an intention toward calmness, and creating calm, the better off I am–and the better off others are as well, I would assume.

And of course the same goes for the good stuff. In the face of success, reward, and positive opportunities, my situation only improves if I can face struggles and blessings alike with equal calm.