Think back to the last time you were somewhere you didn’t want to be — getting a speeding ticket, in the checkout line that seems to be moving the slowest at the store, at the airport after having just learned that your flight has been cancelled or delayed, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway, wide awake at 3 in the morning when you desperately need a good night’s sleep, etc. Do you recall what went on in your mind? My guess is that you were thinking thoughts like, “I don’t have time for this,” ”I’m going to miss my meeting now,” “I don’t want to be here,” “My insurance rates are going to go up,” “This isn’t fair!” “Why can’t I be anywhere else but here right now?” etc.
When you’re busy thinking those thoughts, it’s hard to feel happy. It’s as though you’re somehow fighting reality. And fighting reality never leads to pleasant experiences or peace or even joy. Before you start thinking that the best course of action is to try to change your circumstances, consider this:
The way you interpret what happens in any moment
greatly impacts your experience of that moment.
What does that mean? It means that the things you choose to focus on and the stories you tell yourself about anything can drastically affect whether you are happy, content, inspired and at peace in any moment, or bored, frustrated, annoyed, angry, or drained instead. You can label any experience as difficult or easy, as a problem or an opportunity or challenge.
Think of it in this way: the filter that you wear as you walk through life influences how pleasant or unpleasant your day-to-day life is. The great thing is that we can all change the filters we wear. Changing the filters, though, takes practice. Here’s a practice that I use every time I realize that I’m feeling uneasy. Ask yourself:
What about this situation is completely perfect?
If you can find even the smallest gift in whatever is happening in this moment, the intensity of your reaction to the situation start to soften. You will find yourself more at ease.
You may not be able to change the external circumstances, but you can certainly change how you respond to them. And that begins with changing your attitude. Victor Frankl wrote of this so eloquently in his book Man’s Search For Meaning when he described his experience as a prisoner in concentration camps during World War II. He writes,
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
In every moment of every day, there is what happens and then there’s what you choose to do with it. What kind of day would you like to choose for yourself today? Can you find the perfection in what is?
