Perspective is Everything

I'm struggling a little with today's NaBloPoMo blog prompt because it feeds who I used to be and I don't like to go there. 

The prompt is "What are you not a fan of?"

I used to be a big whiner and complainer.  I was always looking at everything from it's worst possible angle.  I was a huge worrier, read obsessive, about everything, whether or not I had any control over it or not.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to call my self an optimist yet, but I have a good handle on negative in my life and how it effects me and so on.  I know that I can't give weight or energy to complaints or potential negatives in my life.  It eventually destroys my perspective and drives a wedge between God and I. 

I don't like being in that place.  I don't like feeling the discontent. 

I do still take a real good, honest look at things and, in a way, plan for the worst.  I do that because it takes the burden out of it.  It takes the worry away. 

So I take something, like for example, a trip.  I think through, briefly, what I would consider "bad" things that could happen and then I make a plan for how I'm going to handle that.  Like say, it's a long road trip with kids.  I think ahead and plan for boredom, fighting, and sickness.  Then when those things happen, I'm not surprised or caught off guard by them.  Because I have a little bit of a plan for them and because I was in a small way expecting them, they don't carry the weight and stress as if they had simply blindsided me. 

I use this approach in most of my life for most of everything.  It helps me to cope and stay calm.

I also know that if I dwell in the negatives, the situation eventually becomes way worse than it ever should have. 

Here's what I mean by that. 

A long time ago, I was unhappy in life.  I was in circles of people who were generally miserable and negative.  They had horrible attitudes and opinions of the people and events in their lives.  They hated their jobs.  They hated their financial situation.  They hated their spouse and kids.  When ever they talked about any of these things, every single thing they said was a negative or a complaint.  I was saturated in it.  They were my friends.  Their words influenced my thoughts and soon, I was just like them.

Every time I spoke about my job or money or my marriage, I said only negative things.  It didn't take long for that to poison me and cloud my view.  Every hour at work became a torture because all I could see was negative all around me.  I wasn't paid enough.  I did jobs that "weren't mine" to do.  Too much was expected of me.  The people I worked with were jerks.  They didn't do their jobs right.  They got more than they deserved.  The customers were even worse, selfish, demanding, rude.

In my marriage, I never saw the good in The Mr.   I only saw the negative of the long hours, the travel.  I saw all the places he didn't think of me by not meeting some need I never told him of.  He never did the things I wanted him to do, like the dishes, because I never asked, but I just added it to the long list of ways he was failing me or not loving me. 

That line of thinking is poison.  It destroys.  It brings discontent.  It left me bitter and mean with everyone around me and with myself. 

I didn't have any grace.

For anyone.

Including myself.

It was a horrible place to be, but I learned some hard lessons there that I will not forget and that brings me back around to the writing prompt.

The focus of today was to write about things you are not a fan of.  Well, I don't want to.  I don't want to dwell on all the little slights and hurts of my days.  They are dull and fleeting.  I don't want to give energy to even the biggest negatives in my small little slice of this life. 

I want to see the beauty in the dark rainy day.  I want to find joy in the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.  I want to discover the humor in driving my son to school on his last day barefoot in my pj's.  I want there to be delight under the dust bunnies.  There is blessing in the overfull schedule.  There is honor in being "needed" by so many.  I want to see the love through the disagreeable words and cranky moments, it comes through clearly in the moments of resolution.

I want to always be checking and seeing and taking note of where God is in my ordinary.

And so today, I have done the daily blog.  I have in a way touched on the topic.  I will not though, give you a list of things I'm not a fan of.

I guess the short of it all is that for me, perspective is everything.

Meet me in the comments and tell me how you keep yourself from falling prey to all the never ending negatives around you.

Cars

So I've got this thing about cars, and it's getting worse. Blame it on the years I spent working at dealerships, but I have issues.

Then again, maybe it's money issues. Or maybe it's really about gratitude or generosity or greed or pride.

Maybe I just have issues.

Expensive cars make me crazy. Really crazy. Like almost distracted while driving crazy.

I've never owned a really expensive fancy car. I've had a lot of practical cars, some on the more expensive end, but definitely not new or fancy. There are no perks or gizmo's on the bus is what I'm saying.

Why does a cool car drive me nuts?

It's not that I don't appreciate the beauty of a cool car. I do. I really, really do. I enjoyed my days at the dealerships, driving around in those brand new Cadillacs and sports cars. I did. It was fun. They're cool cars. No doubt about it.

It's the money tied to it that kills me.

When I see an amazing car driving down the road and I get a mental number of what that car cost, I start shaking my head. Know why?

Because I'm thinking, "Really?"

"Really?"

"That was the best thing you could think to do with a chunk of money that big?"

Pick a charity and give away half of it. I don't care what charity you pick. Save a penguin, lobby for greener greens or wetter water or feed a few hundred kids. Whatever. It just seems insane to me, that a person would intentionally take that huge pile of cash and dump it into a vehicle.

I know. I get it. The same can be said of our lattes and improve-your-butt-tennis-shoes, our colored hair and whitened teeth. We drop our dollars on diet food when we could just eat things that don't come in packages--you know, like fruits and veggies.

Ahem.

We're all guilty of it. I drop dollars in places that I feel guilty about later. I look at my life and feel ashamed of how little I do and how little I give. It's easy to climb on my justification tower and say, but I am doing this or that.

Yeah. Whatever.

I'm thinking it's all going to sound pretty lame when I start to stutter in front of the King.

Can I get an Amen here?

But back to my point about the cars, can I just ask a simple favor?

If you're out there, driving one of those super fantastic, awesome convertibles on an Indian Summer afternoon in a temperate climate, could you at least put the top down and look like you're reveling in every last second of it? Would it be to much to ask you to put a smile on your face?

Nothing wastes a hot car like a driver mad at the world.