Rip Van Winkle

I’m traveling this week and experienced a slight challenge. I was getting ready for bed and heard this strange noise. I muted the television and realized I could hear the snoring person in the room next to mine. They were snoring VERY loudly, enough for me to hear it through the walls. At first I was astonished; how can someone snore that loud? I was also perplexed as to how I was going to sleep knowing this sound was permeating my room. I turned the tv back on and focused on that sound instead of the snoring.

The next night I had the same experience – snoring through the walls and television on to  distract my senses. I found myself slightly annoyed. As I tried to get to sleep I thought about the person next door. How tired they must be, or the health challenges they may be experiencing to be snoring so loudly. I imagined that they were a new parent who was traveling for business and this was the first opportunity they had to sleep through the night without any crying babies. I thought about a traveler who had jet lag and they were finally getting caught up on their sleep. I then thought about someone who was traveling for a long period of time, far away from home and forget their C-PaP machine, hence the snoring. All these images of who might be sleeping on the other side of the wall came to mind.

Once I began to imagine who it might be, my compassion kicked in. I realized I would eventually get to sleep and they obviously needed to sleep. I put it into perspective knowing that in the grand scheme of things there was nothing to worry about, sleep would eventually come my way. I released my frustrations and hoped they had a restful night.

So many times we get frustrated by people around us and circumstances we cannot control that impact our lives. When I changed my thought process by trying to find some compassion my attitude changed. I was able to calm down and go to sleep and what had annoyed me was no longer so annoying. I gained perspective and found that I didn’t have it so bad. I changed my thought process and was able to get some rest.

Tonight is day three at this hotel. I hope my next door neighbor – Rip Van Winkle – can get more rest or maybe even checked out. Either way I plan to sleep well and wake refreshed and ready for another day.