photo credit: surlygirl

What is your reality?

Today has been a writing day for me.  And it has created two realities for me.

Reality #1

I spent most of the day working on three different pieces which never quite felt right.  I deliberately took a break and came back to them a couple of hours later.  They didn’t seem any better.  I worked with them for another half hour and finally got myself so depressed that I decided to just leave.

Reality #2

Having given up in disgust, I grabbed the lead and took the dog for a walk.  She’s pretty much always up for a walk and I just felt awful.  I had worked myself into quite a state about what I would write for my next post.

We walked down to the park, her sniffing everything along the way and me gradually being distracted from my awfulness by the book I’m listening to – My Stroke of Insight (fascinating and wonderful).

When we got to the park, I took the dog off the lead and followed her around until we got to some picnic tables.  Then I sat down and she kept sniffing.  As I sat there, listening to the birds and enjoying the cooling evening, I began to feel better.  The birds were chasing each other all over the park and the evening was very pleasant.  Eventually, I called the dog and we headed back to the house.  She was emptied (as planned) and I was feeling better (as hoped).

So What Is Real?

The question that this raises for me is, “What is reality?”  Was it the feeling awful?  Was it the feeling better?

I think it is both AND I think we get to choose.  When Ellie is talking about A-B-C-D-E, she is talking about choosing your reality… choosing how you will interpret the bare facts that make up your current situation.  It is not what happens to us but what we bring to it that decides how we view a situation.

Once, when Ellie and I were traveling across the country to preview a new class that we had written, we got stranded in Detroit.  The airport was closed and there was no way that we could fly out that evening.  We also couldn’t get our luggage.  BUT we could buy a couple of tee shirts to sleep in.   AND the Detroit airport may not have a lot to recommend it if you have to sleep in the airport, but you can literally walk out one door and into the Marriott next door and get a room – which we did.  This had several advantages, we weren’t home, but we were comfortable.  We didn’t have to worry about dinner or breakfast because they came with our room.  AND we didn’t have to spend lots of time getting to and from the airport, we were literally next door.  As a yucky travel experience, this was better than most.

We could have focused on the inconvenience.  We both wanted to be home.  We wanted this very long trip to be over. (NOTHING had gone right.)  BUT it could have been worse, much worse.  In the end, it was a blessing that we were routed through Detroit.  If we’d been routed through Minneapolis or O’Hare, we would have ended up spending the night IN the airport.  We were safe.  We were relatively comfortable.  It was a blessing.

Finding Blessings

And this brings me to the nub of the matter.  We choose whether the situation is a blessing or not.  We choose how we feel about where we are and what is going on.  What for me is an adversity, for you may be a blessing or just a slight annoyance.  Reality is relative.  Choose one that suits you.

What is your reality?