Words From Window Glass

“Keep Calm and Carry On”

-A sign in a bedroom window

Words From Window Glass

I was driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood on an early Saturday morning.  The road in front of me was getting steeper and I continued up the hill.  The road was winding so the neighborhood was revealing itself to me turn by turn.  It held lots of variety for interest. 

Most of the neighborhood was filled with older homes, but many of the turns exposed pockets of new homes that sprung surprisingly into to view.  The architecture was varied and I marveled at differing age, size and styles as I drove. I began to look forward to every turn in the road, wondering what surprise it would hold.  Then, a surprise I wasn’t expecting sprang into view.

Just as the street turned and became dramatically steeper there was a large two story house framed in my view.  And, there in a second story bedroom window was a sign.  It had been placed with care so that every driver of every car moving up the street would see it.  I saw it. 
I wasn’t prepared to be hit in the face by words from a bedroom window so early in the morning, but there they were.  “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

I carried on.  The words were spinning around in my head.  I thought about them again and again!  When my meeting was finished up the street, I still thought about them and drove back down, looking over my right shoulder as I navigated.

When I saw the plain white poster I pulled over to the side of the road and read it again.  I thought about it more.  I thought about it for two days until an occasion caused me to be within a mile of the house.  I drove over, stopped, and read it again.  “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

It caused me to reflect over the course of my life time and I came to a conclusion based on personal experiences.  I’ll give you the short version because I’ve lived a long time now and most of my life would bore you to tears!  But here are some events that have had a big personal impact on me.

President Kennedy was shot.  As a child I remember watching the funeral procession and seeing how sad everyone was.  I could tell that lots of people thought their world was coming to an end.

When the first oil embargo hit in about 1973 it had a huge impact on everyone around me and I remember sleeping in a friend’s car one night, in my uncle’s driveway, because it was so late that the gas stations that used to be open in the middle of the night were all closed.  The crazy shortages and price increases made us all think that the world, as we knew it, was ending.

The second oil embargo in 1978 found me waiting in line for hours just to get gas when I was living in the Los Angeles Area.  There were times we couldn’t get gas so we pulled our bicycles out and used them to get places.  The news headlines were ominous and I was really afraid of the future.

The stock market crash of 1987 came and wiped out everyone’s retirement savings.  I was listening to the event on the radio.  By the time I heard about it, it was too late for me to pull any of my money out to safety.  Lots of people viewed this as the end of prosperity.

The Dotcom Crash of 1999 wiped out billions of dollars in stock value again and everyone was running around saying that the sky was falling!

September 11, 2001!  I was traveling on business and couldn’t fly to my next destination so I drove my rental car for a full day to get to there.  When I arrived at my hotel there was an army of valet attendants waiting for my one car!  There were three of us in the huge hotel for almost an entire week.  I’d never seen anything like it and the sky had literally fallen.

November 2008 was the largest financial collapse in history, no matter how you look at it.  The past five years have been a real challenge for most of us.  Sometimes it’s hard to keep it all in perspective.  But, a little sign, placed carefully in a bedroom window so I could read it when I drove by caused me to search for new perception.

You and I have faced many life shattering changes.  If you’re older than I, you’ve experienced more that I have.  If you’re younger than I am then you’ve faced fewer.  The fact is that we’ve all faced them!  These days it’s easy for us to listen to the constant chorus of “the sky is falling.”  Perhaps the sky is falling and perhaps it’s not.

The little sign, in the little window, on the big hill is there to remind us that there will always be big hills in front of us.  When we’ve climbed them then we’ll be able to sail down for a while.  Then there will be another big hill in front of us to climb.  That will never change, so let’s be the ones that keep calm and carry on.  Life will change for the better and the worse.  You and I can always use all of our experiences to change for the best.