It's All About Perspective

Obstacle of the day: Serious craving for Blue Bell vanilla ice cream with a dollop (or three) of Jif peanut butter on top

Now onto the post...
Sometimes I think God sends us little reminders (or blaring flashing lights) that we need to stop and slow down a little bit. As someone who is a bit of a control freak, uh, I mean....organizer...yes, that's better...I can rack my brains planning, thinking, wondering, and worrying. But here lately I just haven't felt the need to be that way. When I came back from vacation a couple of weeks ago, I felt like someone was giving me tranquilizer darts. I used my time on our trip to stop and take in and enjoy everything around me, I was able to enjoy every moment of every day. All the sights and sounds and smells and experiences...Things that I should do at home in every day life but most of the time don't.

This blissful feeling has lasted a good week and a half. I returned to work hoping no one would think I had been sipping on wine before coming in. Things seemed to roll off my back and nothing could get to me--not a dirty house, dirty dishes--all the usual stuff that would normally drive me nuts!

And then today it happened...the life I knew before vacation started to creep back and take control. I woke up this morning the sorest I have been in a long time. I started to whine. I ran out of milk while pouring it over my cereal. I had nothing to wear. My hair wouldn't do right. My car was almost out of gas. Boo hoo boo hoo boo hoo, etc. etc.

I'm at a stoplight on the way to work thinking about how tired I am and how good that cup of coffee was going to be when I got there. An old, ratty truck pulls up beside me and out of the corner of my eye I see the passenger in the vehicle trying desperately to get my attention. My first thought, Come on, dude, can't you just leave me alone?

Movement continues and I refuse to look because I'm scared some weirdo is going to be mooning me or yelling an obscenity to me or something along those lines. Seriously, it's only 7:30 a.m. and I can't even enjoy my quiet commute to work?! I could only see out of my periphery and now we were at the light so long that I was going to have to look. Not because I wanted to but because I was annoyed beyond belief that this person obviously wanted my attention and was not going to give up.

So I snapped my head to the left as if to say "What the heck do you want?!" and God himself could not have slapped me any harder at that moment. It was the biggest wake up call I've had in a long time and just slammed me with the fact that attitude is everything. As my eyes met the eyes of the Golden Retriever grinning at me in the passenger seat, I wanted to cry. I was letting the everyday chaos seep back in and right then I apologized to God for being such an a-hole and vowed to look for the amazing things in life every single day.
Then, because it's me and I carry a camera with me at all times like a dork, I whipped it out and took a picture and laughed and smiled all day long. I think I will put it on my bathroom mirror to remind me of God's wake up call to me, how wonderful life is, and how my perspective on things makes a huge difference.