I Thought I Was Having a Bad Day—Until This Happened

The other day, I was deep in the zone—focused on some project work for a client, head down and making real progress. About an hour into my session, everything went dark.

Power outage.

Now, I live in Mexico, so this isn’t exactly breaking news. These things happen. I flipped over to my hotspot, unplugged my second monitor, and kept working. Sunlight was pouring in, and my phone gave me all the signal I needed to plow ahead.

About 30 minutes later, I took a break and glanced outside. Neighbor’s ceiling fans were running, so they had power. That’s when it hit me—we might’ve missed a bill.

Here in Mexico, your electric bill shows up as a slip of paper stuffed in a mailbox. If it rains, blows away, or gets buried under junk mail, it’s gone. Turns out… that’s exactly what happened.

My wife—who usually handles this, and virtually everything about managing our house, like a superhero—was out with the kids at the water park. So, I offered to take care of it.

She sends me the address to the electric company. (Yes, I’ve lived here for six years and still didn’t know where it was. Because again—she’s a superhero.)

I grab my keys, hop in the Jeep, turn the ignition… and nothing. Battery’s dead.

Power’s out. Jeep’s dead. I look at the map. The electric company’s a 25-minute walk. And I’ve got about 90 minutes before a couple of important calls.

So, I start walking.

I get there, pay the bill, and they tell me it could take up to five hours to get my power and Wi-Fi back.

Great.

I walk back, call an audible, and decide to post up at a bar and restaurant I know I can work from. So, I call an Uber. What’s usually a five-minute drive turns into a 15-minute sit in dead traffic.

Now, I just walked this road 15 minutes ago, so I had no clue why it was locked up.

I hop out and start walking again.

At this point, I’ve already done a quick morning run with my wife, my usual 6 mile walk and work, plus the hike to the electric company. But I’m getting my steps in, right?

I walk across the overpass bridge and look down for the sidewalk that I’d be using to walk to the restaurant—and it’s gone.

Construction.

But it gets better. As luck would have it, just 45 minutes earlier, part of the road had literally collapsed. The whole area's a mess, and now the only way to get where I’m going is to walk alongside a highway—on a road that part of which had just recently collapsed.

No thanks.

So, I pivot again and walk to a different spot. While I’m walking, I’m rescheduling calls, wondering if I should just cancel everything, order a couple margaritas, and call it a day.

I finally get to the new place. They’ve got Wi-Fi. Power. A table next to an outlet. I start getting back to work.

And then I get a text from my wife.

We didn’t know the girl. But my son had been playing with her not long before the incident. She was five years old. They found her floating under water in the pool.

The ambulance came, and they and the lifeguards tried—but it was too late.

That text—and the ensuing conversation with my wife—hit like a punch to the gut.

Suddenly, the power outage, the dead Jeep battery, the traffic jam, the detour(s)—all of it just dissolved.

Because when something like this happens, nothing else really matters. Not the Wi-Fi. Not the client calls. Not the little daily disruptions we treat like emergencies.

Some family out there lost their little girl. And my family—my kids—were just feet away.

This isn’t one of those newsletters where I tie it all back to business.

No clever mindset tip. No productivity takeaway.

Just a raw moment that made me stop.

Maybe it helps you stop, too.

To take a breath.

To realize that 99% of what we call “a bad day” is just life doing its thing.

So, hug your people. Laugh at your next mishap. Let that thing go that doesn’t really matter.

Because there’s something about the power of perspective.

And sometimes, it takes a day like this to remember it.

Ray