It's a Matter of Perspective

Today I was driving out of the parking lot of my local library when a lady pulled out in front of me and then gave me an indignant look like I was the one doing something wrong. I simply smiled because you see I have found out that it is in fact a matter of perspective.
In that moment it did not matter who was right or wrong, well maybe not to me, but it certainly did to her. Now, I could have laid on the horn, gave a gesture and yelled but what would that have accomplished really? Some of you will say it would have made me feel better! But would it have, really? When we allow someone to get us so upset that we feel that we have to retaliate it really does us way more harm than good.

Physically it raises our blood pressure, stress level and brain activity by releasing the hormones that cause our flight or fight syndrome, none of which are good for us. Emotionally it causes all kinds of possibly harmful feelings, like hate and anger, which in the long run does not make us, feel very good and can cause us to not think clearly and possibly cause an accident ourselves.
No, I choose to smile and move on and not just for the reasons I stated above. I try to live my life in such a way that 1.) I only concern myself with things that I can directly control and 2.) I try to look at things from the other persons’ perspective.

1.I only concern myself with things that I can directly control!

With that in mind since I do not control 90% of what happens to me I do not worry about most things, in fact, I do not worry anyway. I definitely give that 10% my attention but in a positive, what can I do to affect this manner, mostly with a clear head and thoughts so that I can come up with a rational solution.

Now, the only thing I control about the other 90% is how am I going to react to what just happened. Of course I have two choices; I can react either positively or negatively. I choose positively as often as I can because I like peace and harmony. Don’t you? Mentally, emotionally and physically those are the better places to be and spiritually it lifts me up! I like that!

2.I try to look at things from the other persons’ perspective.

Even though I really may not know exactly what’s going on in that persons’ life at that particular moment, I try to at least say to myself, hey, they may be having a bad day, got some bad news, are late for an appointment, etc. And even if they just are the type of person who is ticked off most of the time that can only have an effect on me if I allow it too. In fact in most situations where someone else is being what I might consider rude or inconsiderate, I just try and smile for two reasons.

First of all, I feel better (You can call that selfish, I call it maintaining my health!) and secondly, maybe just maybe I may help them to relax and brighten their day. You see if I give into their negativity, it will certainly grow because I am feeding it. But, if I throw something positive at that negativity, I may just diffuse it or at least lessen it some.

I can really sum this up by repeating a wonderfu saying I saw on a t-shirt today, “I am too blessed to be stressed!”

Beggars can't be choosers!

Even though some of you may not find this to be spiritual, in fact everything we do has a spiritual aspect to it. In my book, Rare Sense, I talk about giving and receiving and how hard a lot of us have with receiving anything. Then I was told a story about a couple and a foodbank and it got me wondering about the old adage reflected in the title of this blog. Beggars can't be choosers.

The story (and it's true) goes like this. For the first time in their lives a couple was facing the reality that they had to look for assistance to help feed their family due to financial challenges, so they turned to a local food bank for help. Upon arriving @ the foodbank, to their obvious dismay, they were given generic brand food. They actually refused to accept the food because it was generic. Perhaps this is the mind set that has gotten them in the financial mess that they are in today. If the thought process is I can only accept help if it is brand name help, then they have much deeper problems than just a financial. They are spiritually out of balance.

You see, if you have a material mindset and those material things are the most important thing to you, then you may actually, like this couple did, refuse help to feed your family because what was offered was not good enough. If you have that type of mindset then I suggest you reevaluate your life and start actually looking for the good "non" material things in your life, like love, compassion and acceptance. Understand that those things are more important and look for the good in the everyday things and you will see that other things like financial concerns will eventually go away. However, if you have the mindset that "generic" food is not good enough then you will continue to chase the material things and just continue having financial concerns.

It also goes back to not being able to receive. That couple was looking for assistance and it was provided to them and they refused it because it was not good enough. That is not only insane, it is irresponsible. I am sure given their mindset that it was hard enough to go to the foodbank in the first place but then to compound the problem by not accepting the help makes no sense. This is why I call it rare sense because common sense would have had them accept the help no matter whether it was generic or not!