Last Updated on April 8, 2020 by Iryna

If you’ve read about me on this blog, you saw me mentioning the approaches I use in life: “Never Give Up” and “Always Find a Positive Side”.

As I remember myself, I always had this attitude, trying to find something good in any life scenario. Maybe it was taught to me by my mother, who was steering my attention to the positive side of the situation. Or maybe it’s in my genes somehow, and I need to thank my far far ancestors. I don’t have an answer.

But I definitely know that’s a strong and powerful tool that helped me to go through the immigration to another country, job loss and avoiding unemployment depression,  and other situations.

I also know it’s possible to cultivate the positive outlook on life by reminding yourself about that.

Or by reading positive quotes or affirmations (like those quotes I regularly post on my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages), consuming information on self-development, listening to the music with healing energy, surrounding yourself with love and joy.

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I also believe every situation in our life has a reason, even though we may not be able to see it right away. And the following story is a great example for you to follow that idea and to start reminding yourself to

Never Give Up!

It was a weekend family activity – swimming at the indoor community center’s pool.

In the change room, I was taking off my earrings and was looking for where to place them. I usually take off my jewelry as I don’t want to lose it in the swimming pool, and then make the aquatic staff dive in for it.

The nearest place was my jeans’ pockets. Some tiny voice inside gently warned me: “You may lose them”. 

And you know what was the response in my thoughts to that message? “Meh, I don’t care”. Literally, within seconds I, myself, have created the situation with the possible outcome I was warned about.

Very often we don’t pay attention to those teensy voices, or we just get distracted by the noise around, loud screaming by our logical thoughts. And then only after, sometime later, we would recall: “Oh, yes, I remember I had a feeling I shouldn’t have done it”.

Can you relate? This happens to me quite often, as my intuition is still not that strong, and still, I can’t hear it loud enough to pause and think about it.

Not surprisingly, after we returned home, I haven’t found my earrings in the pocket they were placed to. I’ve checked everywhere, but no luck.

I loved those earrings as they’ve reminded me about my travel time back home. There were a part of my warm memories about family time, summer, sandy beach, and travel adventures.

After I couldn’t find them, I’ve remembered that tiny voice inside with the warning. Well, the outcome was well-deserved.

The very next day I went to the same swimming pool and asked to look around. It was not a busy time for the swimmers and the change room was empty.

The first earring was spotted right away near the bench. “Yay, victory!” – I thought to myself. But search in the same area for the second earring didn’t bring any result.

At the back of the bench, there was a heating unit with lots of plates and dust in between them. Crouched on my fours, I was exploring millimeter by millimeter of this abandoned by people area, trying to spot a small shiny object. I did find someone’s lost comb, but it was too dark and dusty there to see the small object.

I’ve decided to take a break and to check other areas, even though I was so sure I could find nothing there. The second earring was supposed to be near the first one, right? Unless someone found it and decided to keep it in their jewelry collection.

After exploring the area near the dressing rooms, with no result, I came up with the idea of making a video with my phone of the abandoned heating unit and then watching it.

Putting my hand under the bench and the heating unit, I’ve started to move slowly, recording all the inappropriate details of its dark and dusty life.

I’ve started preparing myself for the loss and get ready to leave, but heard in my head: “Search a little bit more”.

Honestly, I didn’t see any sense of wasting more time crawling on the floor, as I’ve already looked everywhere! But decided I needed to follow my strategy of not giving up and stay a little longer, even without much reasonable hope.

My exercising on the floor of the change room was interrupted by a woman who just finished swimming. I had this feeling inside I needed to talk to her, so I’ve explained my situation and what I was doing there.

She sympathized with my loss, and said: “Let me look around, I am usually lucky finding things”. In a minute I hear: “Is this what you are looking for?”

She was holding my other earring, and she found it near the dressing rooms, where I just looked minutes ago!

That was AMAZING! The earring was a little crooked, but it was found! Yay! Thanks to the stranger who was not a stranger anymore, but a nice person, participant in my learning scenario.

What if I gave up and left after searching a little bit?

What if I didn’t listen to my intuition and haven’t started a conversation with the swimming lady?

A little persistence and trust got rewarded. I understand earrings may not seem like a big deal, but this is just an example of the outcome you may receive when you don’t give up.

Such small situations and small victories of the right decisions made form our entire life…

My lesson was learned.

First, be responsible and respectful to the items.

Second, watch your thoughts and listen to the tiny squick inside you.

Third, trust your gut and NEVER GIVE UP!