Please excuse me if I'm a little sad today. Mark is leaving, and I'm feeling kind of sad. You probably don't know Mark, but you might be lucky enough to know someone just like him. He's been the heart and soul of the office for a couple of years combining great professional skills with a sweet nature. He just wants to do his job, and to do it superbly well. And now he's moving on to an exciting new professional opportunity. It sounds like it could be the chance of a lifetime, and we're genuinely, sincerely pleased for him. But that doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye to a dear friend and trusted colleague. Life has a way of throwing these curve balls at us. Just when we start to get comfortable with a person, a place or a situation. A terrific neighbor moves away. Someone in the family graduates. A child finds new love and loyalties through marriage. The family's principle bread-winner is laid off. But how do we do that? A friend of mine who works for the government once told me that the answer to life's problems can be summed up in four words: "Go with the flow." "It's like surfing," Chris explained. "You can't organize the ocean. Waves just happen. You ride them where they take you, then you paddle back out there and catch the next one. Sure, you're always hoping for the perfect wave where you can get. But mostly you just take them the way they come. I'm not exactly sure, but I think Chris was saying that life is a series of events--both good and bad. There will always be life-influencing factors over which you have no control. That doesn't mean you don't keep trying to make all your dreams come true. It just means that when things come up that aren't exactly in your plan, you work around them--and then you move on. Of course, some bumps along the road of life are easier to take than others. A rained-out picnic, for example, is easier to cope with than the sudden death of a loved one. But the principle is the same. We're going to miss Mark, just like you'll miss that graduate, that neighbor or that newlywed. But rather than drown ourselves in the sadness of our parting, we'll focus on our hopes for a brighter future--for him, and for us. And then we'll go out and do everything we can to make that future happen. The leaving of Mike makes the writer feel   _  .
really unpleasant very angry both happy and sad a little disappointed