When the worst happens

I'm not a girl who deals well with a crisis. I don't panic by any means but I do tend to bury my head in the sand.

I haven't quite moved on from sticking my fingers in my ears and singing “la la la, I can't hear you'' when someone tries to tell me anything I don't want to know.

When it comes to matters of finance, I'm at my worst. Bills lie unopened and stuffed into drawers, ATM receipts get filed in the bin and I go to ridiculous lengths to avoid even entering a bank.

So much so, that I have a cheque that has been sitting in my handbag waiting to be cashed for two and a half months.

However, I am changing. I'm planning on making a conscious effort to deal with my finances (I'll start tomorrow) and to get in shape and clear out my clutter too. It seems like a good time to face reality.

The global credit crisis keeps throwing unexpected hurdles for some and devastating blows to others. Whether you like it or not, life comes into perspective during times such as these.

Perhaps it's a symptom of being a rose-tinted specs wearer but I like to see a silver lining to every cloud. When I look back on the best things that have happened to me, they are often preceded by some of the worst.

For instance, when I lost out on a short-term contract for a great job in London, I was devastated and had to settle for a job I loathed instead.

The terrible job gave me so much drive and determination that I ended up in Dubai doing what I had always dreamt of, just a year later.

If I had got the first job, I doubt that I would have been quite as ambitious about turning my situation around.

A friend of mine was recently made redundant. Instead of wallowing in self-pity and tubs of ice-cream, she signed up to do the degree she had always regretted not having taken up.

Another friend who found himself in the same situation jetted off to Kenya to teach English for a year.

Even when life throws the worst at you, I would like to think that there's always something that can be salvaged — whether it's writing a book of your experiences, helping others in the same boat or just making someone chuckle about your disasters years later when you can (finally) laugh about them.