In life, I’ve found that there are only 2 things we have any real control over; our attitude and our actions. The other stuff is the things that happen in the course of a life. Thing is, those things that happen result from our actions and attitudes about the things that happened before it. Sounds a bit confusing I know, but it really isn’t. I’ll give you a few examples. Say you overslept this morning. Damn it! You immediately jump up pissed off because you woke up late. You rush around like a banshee, forgoing a hot shower and even pass on your morning coffee because you don’t want to hear your supervisor’s ‘damn’ mouth and you know the traffic’s gonna be backed up. You jump in the car, blowing your horn at any and everybody on the highway who is doing anything remotely close to the speed limit and give the finger to the dude who is slowing down in the fast lane. You swing around him just in time for the realization to hit that he was slowing down because a trooper was sitting in the cut and now you have a nice, fat speeding ticket. You finally get to work, exasperated, almost an hour late, and have to listen to your supervisor’s ‘damn’ mouth anyway because “you didn’t even have the decency to call and say you were going to be late.” Here begins the day from hell! Sheesh!!
REWIND- Let’s try it again. You overslept this morning. You already know you’re going to be late because the 7:30 traffic is much heavier than the 7:00 traffic and there’s no getting around that. You call into the office letting your supervisor know you’re going to be half an hour or so late and that you’ll call if anything changes. You jump in the shower then pour a cup of coffee into your travel mug. You knew the traffic would be bad so you relax and turn on the radio for your drive to work; nothing ranting and raving will do about the traffic anyways! You get to the job exactly 35 minutes late, having had your coffee, and laughed at the morning radio show- those guys are hilarious, stop by the supervisor’s office, letting her know you’re in and head off to handle whatever comes your way today. Much better right. Same scenario, different results! These are the things that we decide, and based on the decisions that we make, we determine what happens next.
I’ll share with you a secret- sh** happens! It’s not just you and it’s not personal. Everybody has problems. Best we can do is wake up everyday with the thought that life is gonna throw us some curves and we gotta deal with them. On any given day when everything is going fine and it’s not spectacular, but nothing bad has happened, the average person does not sit around wondering where the problems are. “Why am I not having problems today? Where is my speeding ticket? or Why didn’t I miss the bus?” Doesn’t happen right? But as soon as we break a heel or lose a 10 spot, the world is out to get us and we are just magnets for bad luck. Get a grip! Having a good attitude leads to being solution oriented. Obviously, more serious problems call for more serious solutions and a greater capacity to cope. (For me, this is where meditation comes in.) There’s a saying that “Life is 10% of what happens to us, and 90% how we react to it.” We take so much for granted in our everyday lives but when we have control over our thoughts and actions, and we learn to cope with the sh** life throws at us; we’ll be just fine.
Get your mind right.
Peace- two fingers, one love!
I like this post. It was short, sweet and to the point.
ReplyDeleteA lot of things aren't personal, but they feel personal and doesn't that count for something?