Love, American Beautiful

I woke up yesterday morning to my washer, with my clothes still in it, stuck in the rinse cycle. If you know me, you know that I love my clothes, especially my sweats and old college tees. So, to see all of my favorite staples swimming in soapy water and a washer that refused to move onto the spin cycle, caused a bit of panic. Now, a broken washer is definitely not the end of the world, but it did throw my morning off, especially when I looked at new washer prices upon realizing there was no fixing it. To make matters worse, as I attempted to make myself look presentable for work, I realized that all hope was lost when my expensive new straightener would not turn on.

With the distractions, I found myself running late for a morning meeting. I hopped in the car hoping to avoid all traffic and make it to the meeting on time when I hit a pothole the size of China. In slow motion I saw my coffee (the only thing that got me out of bed in the first place) jump out of the cup holder and empty it’s contents all over my white jacket that sat across the passenger seat.

*insert freak out*

Not only did my white jacket that I intended to wear to my meeting become immediately stained by coffee, but I no longer had a washer to attempt and soak it before the stain set. As the choice words flew out of my mouth and I attempted to retrieve the coffee cup and salvage the jacket, my frustration with my crappy morning continued to build and the thought “worst morning ever” swirled through my mind.

At that moment my phone rang with my morning phone call from my long distance boyfriend. Before he could even get a proper good morning greeting out, I was yelling about how terribly my morning started with a mix of sarcasm and pissed-off-ness. He waited until I was finished with my pity party and replied, “well, at least you were blessed enough to wake up this morning.”

*I may have overreacted*

That was all I needed to reevaluate. Of all of the things that happened that morning, nothing was even remotely serious to warrant the title of terrible morning, it was merely a inconvenience. As soon as I hung up the phone, I heard a woman on the radio recount her “terrible” morning which included just as many petty things as mine did. I started to laugh. I realized that we all become so caught up in our own lives, that we let these little insignificant things ruin our mornings. Our reality becomes skewed and we begin to feel sorry for ourselves, completely disregarding the fact that there are much worse things going on in the world.

I thought about the people that I see every day that are quite literally experiencing the worst days of their lives and realized that no part of my morning was even close to what they were going through. It was at that moment that I made the choice to take these little inconveniences as a challenge. A challenge to keep my life and these small inconveniences in perspective. It is when we keep our life in perspective that we are able to truly appreciate all that we have, and how blessed we really are. I could let an insignificant experience ruin my day, or I could keep it in perspective and “not sweat the small stuff.”

I spend a lot of my time trying to determine the secret to living a happy life and I think our perspective determines a large part. By refusing to be frustrated by little things, we are able to focus our time on the important things. We are able to truly enjoy life without being bogged down by minor interruptions.

I rolled down the windows turned up the radio and didn’t let the hiccups of the morning determine the rest of my day. I stopped on the way home from my meeting and took a minute to sit by the river and have a moment of meditation. I was indeed, “blessed enough to wake up this morning,” and that’s really all that matters.

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln