Monday, January 5, 2015

The Best Laid Plans....

Once again, I find myself back in the states, and once again, my carefully laid plans have gone astray.   Before I left Vrindavan on December 9, 2014,  I had spent months arranging, coordinating and planning with a friend I had met once in Vrindavan to take over the business of procuring and shipping items ordered from my Etsy shop.  This was critical, as for any business, but particularly at this time as the shop was doing very well, picking up a lot of business, both new and repeat customers, plus 'twas the Christmas season and things had really begun to pick up from that stand point.

My "friend" replacement arrived from England (she is a PIO - Person of Indian Origin; a pharmacist living in England with her heart left in Vrindavan) a few days before I left India.  I had everything organized, packaged and labeled, all she had to do was find the items, neatly labeled and organized in numbered boxes, address the envelops and ship the items out, as new orders came in.  We even went through the process with several new orders that were ready to be filled.  She seemed confident, and I put my trust in her, and her ability to work with her boyfriend, a long time resident of Vrindavan, to get it done!  And this wasn't the end all of our business potentials - we had discussed over the many months, how we were going to grow the business together and share in the profits.  We even planned to open a cafe and yoga studio later on in the spring of 2015.

However.......

....No sooner had I left India and arrived back in the states - with many new orders piling in from Etsy during my time in transit, when I got a response message from her saying she was going to Pushkar for a week - hope you don't mind - ok ?!?! - and would take care of orders when she got back!!! 

WTF?!?!?  - NO!!  NOT OK!!

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it" (thanks for the advice, Charles R. Swindoll)

I think Wayne Dyer's is more  apropos: "How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours."

My reactions tend to be knee-jerk...not good I know, I'm working on it.  But still, this really messed things up for me.  I had to cancel almost all orders because nothing would make it to the States, or any place else for that matter, by Christmas, which is when most people wanted delivery. 

I immediately put my Etsy shop on vacation mode so no more orders would come in.  Called my good and trustworthy friends from Fatehpur Sikri and had them arrange to pick up all the stuff in Vrindavan and just hold onto until I got back, or figured out something more immediately effect to do.  Why not ask my trusty friends from Fatehpur Sikri to take over the business you ask?  Well, as much as I would trust them with my life, they are, sadly - illiterate.

Once my knee-jerk response had run it's course, I was able to reflect on my more often called upon saying, "when God shuts a door, he opens a window".  Why this happened doesn't matter, it happened for a reason.  I just need to see it through, relax and accept - I can rebuild loss business and customers when I return in February.

My overall react to this set back is one of positive acceptance and looking forward to where God will lead me next.


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