The Parking Experience

Part of my fun for having free weekends is to spend time with my kids. Some parents are not excited to have to drive their kids around for different activities. I, on the other hand, feel privileged that I get to drive them around. This means that I have the luxury, outside of work, to do some family related activities.

This past weekend, my son had a swim meet not too far away, but in a neighborhood that is not known to be the safest. I had never driven there before, so even though the GPS indicated that it would take 23 minutes to get there without traffic, I left an hour before his check-in time.

I spotted the aquatic center. I was forewarned that parking could be tricky due to particular restrictions on the streets. After driving around a few times, I was excited to find a parking spot across the street from the aquatic center entrance.

Many parents were so enthusiastic about watching their children swim that, by the time I knew exactly what the schedules would be between the two kids, all the tickets were sold out. After I dropped my son off, I realized that the parking sign read “Saturdays - No parking 8 am – 9 am. It was 7:45 am. Alright, I thought, since I saw some spots around the corner were no parking from 7:30 am – 8 am, I would move to that area.

Being a (parking) law abiding citizen did not get me far (or did it?). There were people sitting in their cars, parked at those spots when there was supposed to be no parking. I circled up and down a few blocks. No spots were open. I went further and further. Finally parked on the street almost a mile away.

I was a little annoyed that people got their way while I “suffered” because I adhered to the rules. That was my initial thought. Then I decided to focus on the fact that a mile was not that far, and I could use some exercise. At the same time, I decided that I would park very close to the aquatic center for day 2 of the swim meet.

That night, I had a plan. As I already knew there were no morning-hour restrictions for Sunday, there were more options. I decided to leave 1.5 hours before the check-in time. There was no traffic. I ended up arriving with a little more than an hour to spare, and I felt triumphant. Within the block of the aquatic center, there were only 3 parking spots left. I took the first one, about 20 yards from the entrance. Within 2 minutes the 2^nd spot was also taken. Before you know it, the 3^rd spot was gone too.

It was a beautiful day in the 60s. After I dropped my son off, I walked around the campus as exercise, enjoying the morning breeze and blue sky.

When my original plan for parking did not work, I did not stay in my pool of misery. I accepted what happened, and determined to learn from my experience to do better next time. And I did. I set my goal. I planned ahead. Suffering is what we make of our experience. Defeat is a state of mind. Focus on what went well, then analyze what did not go so well, and come up with ideas to improve.

You may think that my parking experience was just a petty thing. To me, someone who is rusty on parallel parking and who is not regularly driving in busy city streets, it was a big deal. How you do one thing is how you do everything else.

I will continue to carry this spirit to face life’s challenges. Adversity as a learning experience. As human beings, our lives are full of different obstacles. We can make them as learning experiences. Arguing their existence will only make us feel frustrated, angry and exhausted. We are not perfect, but we can all be better as human beings.