Hustle to there, and now there. Satisfy the bureaucratic process of getting the setup completed for the new job. Oh, and you have only one day to do it. Actually, less: five hours. You get through the physical, congrats on your good health (and for being able to handle the blood work - that's a tough one for some people). Then you need to race to that drug screening. By the way, you now have two hours. And 45 minutes of that time is necessary to get there.
Sure enough, you get to the test lab, and the building's power is out. They can't look up your info, and can't administer the test. But you call, and you find out it isn't the end of the world like you thought. Take the test another day. Easy enough.
Finding oneself in such a situation, you just look at the sky, and you laugh. Of course, you say to yourself. Of course circumstances would get in the way. But, don't be fooled. This little moment is a crucial fork in the road.
In this moment, you have two options:
The first is to feel a sense of persecution. Of course, of course this would happen to me. The world doesn't make things easy. I can't catch a break, you think. The moment presents itself as you versus the world. And so, the rest of your day presses on. That wrong turn you took because you're in the downtown area of a town you've never visited cost you five minutes you couldn't afford to waste. You wasted too much time, you need to go inside for the meeting, you can eat in three hours. After all, those slices of toast should hold you over for over eight. You've been eating too much, and you can't waste your time eating anyway. I'm so unprepared, you think, because you have three forms incomplete, when it should've all been done. You barely got to the bank and opened that new account. It was a long day.
The second is to walk out, and joke with the nice man who held a door for you as you walked in. "Of course!", you say. "Like, what were the odds of this, huh?" He jokes back, and you walk outside after wishing him well. You walk outside, open your broken umbrella, look up at the sky, and you laugh to yourself, smiling. Of course, something weird was bound to happen! Oh well, gotta love it. You miss the turn for the parking lot, but you make silly noises going through the turns to get back. You didn't finish three of those forms; yet you found a way to work it out and even joked with the man from HR where you could. You get to the bank with an hour to spare, open two bank accounts, and with all that done, you crossed two and a half things off your very mature to-do list.
Absurdity will always come your way and present an adversity. You can decide how best to respond to it. In Buddhism, a good practice is to let your head fall back and laugh at how the world plays with you.
At least, if you choose to see it that way.