Never-ending Catastrophe?

Not your typical day at the park

Why did catastrophe follow me around? thought Reid. Everywhere I go, it shows up. I can’t get away from it.

Reid’s life had been filled with catastrophe for four years straight. There was death of family and friends, car accidents (three of them), loss of jobs, the broken collar bone, the burglary, the audit, the fire…

He got to the point where he was expecting everything he did to go horribly wrong. He no longer reacted to catastrophe with surprise and alarm. He began to believe that for every good thing that happens there would follow five or six bad things. Sadly, he also reacted without surprise or gratitude when those few good things happened because he knew there would be catastrophe to follow.

Reid began emanating very negative vibes and people, whether they were consciously aware of it or not, could sense those negative vibes and they tended to steer clear of him. His friends no longer called and no longer answered his phone calls. Coworkers ignored him. Sales clerks in stores avoided him.

Reid had no idea how to turn things around. Everything seemed so hopeless. He finally stopped trying to turn things around. He quit fighting. He gave up. He accepted his doom.