Tales of the unexpected

The Stefanie Preissner column

Is it just me or does anyone else find that unplanned events, surprises or any sudden changes send them into a bit of tailspin? I’m sure people have experienced it to a certain level, but I think the level of chaos I experience when something unexpected happens is bordering on problematic. There are events so objectively earth-shattering that only a Zen master could avoid being rattled. I’m not talking about universal upsets like sudden deaths, snap break-ups, or dreaded terminal diagnoses. I’m fascinated at the level of upset I experience when I encounter minor, sometimes even positive, surprises and I want to know if it’s just me.

Have you ever seen footage, usually on national news channels, of teenagers crippled with tears and anguish when a boyband announces its break-up? Have you ever seen children literally cry over spilled milk? Have you experienced a temper tantrum because a kid was served their food with the chips on the left-hand side of the plate and not the right, and had to endure high-pitched wailing until you realise you can just rotate the plate, and the crying stops?

I have been both adult and child in all of these situations. However, I’m struggling to find examples of when adults show such blatant, unfiltered hysteria when faced with the unexpected, but they have to exist.

I looked into this phenomenon because I wanted to challenge myself. I don’t want to become an old dog who can’t learn new tricks because they’re afraid of ‘the new’. I watched my 91-year-old grandmother glide through her second currency change from pound to euro; learn how to keep my Tamagotchi alive while I went to the beach one summer; get an email address and use it; complete a full ‘Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing’ course; move to online banking; broaden her mind and update her stance during two referendums; place online bets on the Galway races, and never miss an episode of Maura and

Daithi because of Sky Plus. I want to follow in her adaptable, open-minded footprints, so I had to look at my fear of change and distrust of the new.

Then, at precisely the right time, (if there is ever a perfect time for a train strike), I was in London during a tube strike. I’m a creature of habit, and when I am working in London, I take the same route to the same office, picking up the same coffee order in the same cafe — I even go to the same till if I can. I wrap myself up in the familiar, because it makes the world seem safe.

Then the strike happened. I started to hyperventilate, standing in front of the hand-written ‘Please take an alternative route’ scrawl on the London Underground Station. I hate when people hand you a problem, and I hate it even more when it’s delivered in an illegible font. I have taken my regular route so many times, it is now honed and perfected. I even know where to stand on the platform, and now I had to find another way. I used Google Maps, and at some point on the way saw a woman with a BBC lanyard and took a risk that she was going to the same building I was going to, so I followed her through a courtyard short cut. As I queued for my coffee in a cafe I’d never been to before, I realised I’d found a quicker, less stressful way to work.

I think it’s quite a common situation. We get into particular habits, from how we get dressed in the morning to how we get to work. We always do it precisely the same way. We won’t ever change unless we have to — if we break an arm or there’s a train strike. Something knocks us off course and sometimes the new way of doing things can actually be better, more efficient or just more exciting than what we were doing all along.

The obstacles in our lives can paradoxically have a good effect. The unexpected forces us to adapt, and adaptation leads to improvisation, which can lead to discovery, and even growth. I’m writing this more for myself to take it in rather than to convince you, dear reader. Because I still feel a surge of hot intestinal anxiety whenever things surprise me, but I’m now able to talk myself around to seeing the potential for positivity in it. So the thing I’d planned to eat at a restaurant isn’t on the menu? Maybe I’ll find a new dish and become so obsessed with it that I eat it with allergy-inducing frequency. And maybe when my computer crashes and I lose the article I was writing, the new one I come up with will be better than the original, and the tears and fury will have been a waste of time.