On my way back from taking the kiddo to school this morning, I was facing the sun.
The visor does nothing to keep it out of my eyes. It was boring straight into my brain. And I was getting aggravated. It seemed like no matter how many turns I made, the sun was still right there, just beating on my face, wringing my eye juices out to the point that they felt like long-neglected prunes left baking in the desert.
And the longer I drove, the more annoyed I felt.
Eventually, I found myself complaining about the sun, mumbling things under my breath, like “Stupid sun!” or “Why don’t you go behind a cloud already?” and then I just stopped, disgusted with myself.
What was I doing?
The sun is literally one of the biggest gifts in my life. On cloudy days, my depression is so much worse. And when it rains, it affects my mood even more. Sometimes I struggle to want to do even the simplest things on those days.
So, the sun shining is one of the biggest blessings that I count, one of the things I wait for and am most grateful for. And here I was complaining about it. Literally wishing for it to go behind a cloud! How ridiculous is that, when I watched for it and hoped for it all day yesterday?
Acknowledging this made me stop and reflect. It was necessary. Because our mindset has so much to do with how our day is going to play out. We can control at least certain aspects of it.
I was raised in an environment that was almost always negative. Heavy. One of the ways that some of the people closest to me learned to cope with the very poor hand that was dealt to them was by always expecting the worst. And in retrospect, as an adult, I can totally understand how that developed.
However, as a child learning how to process the world, it really messed with my head. I never even realized how unhealthy it was to expect the world and people in general to hand me garbage till I was well into adulthood.
In fact, here I am half a year from 40, and I still struggle all day, every day trying to readjust that perspective. That’s not the perspective that I want to have, no matter how much I understand why someone else may have developed it. It’s not the way I want to be. I don’t want to expect the worst, not from the universe or my people.
I want to expect goodness. I want to be positive.
So, now that I’m home, and the sun did not listen to me and go behind a cloud (thank goodness!), I’m taking a moment to bask in her warmth. And to say a prayer of thanks that she’s visiting today. Because that is just something that needed to be done.
We can almost always find something negative about an experience, if that’s what we’re looking for. But the opposite is also true. If you look for the positive, if you actively and deliberately count your blessings and search for the good, you can almost always find that as well.
So, that’s what I’m doing now.
I’ve readjusted for the day. I’m going to look for my blessings. And I’m going to focus on my positives.
I’m so grateful the sun is out today.
How’s your day going? Did you start out a Grumpy Gus like me?
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Melissa Gray(Author)