Perspective Shift Happens

Yesterday I taped my hurty foot up and got to walking in the trees again. This time I noticed the man-made stuff cluttering my nature experience a lot more than the time before. I noticed rooftops, fences, signs about various hazards, signs saying private property keep out and generally a lot of kind of buzz-kill stuff in the midst of otherwise gorgeous green fluffy flora nature with big views, the whole deal.

I said to my friend Coachella who was visiting from the East, and whom I wanted to impress and amaze with the beauty of everything, “This trail is not the prettiest trail. I am bothered by all this crap in my view. Do you want to hit a different trail?”

And she said, “What are you talking about this is gorgeous?!” And I don’t think she was just being polite because when she said that I kinda looked around and noticed the little yellow flowers all over the place, and the big gnarly majestic trees, and the sky, and the birds chirping and all that other nice nature stuff I hadn’t been noticing a second before because I was in “what’s wrong with this picture?” mode /“what could be improved here?” mode. 

Some of that negative way of being I think is my mental default, a natural talent, and some of it’s the training. In my work life I got trained and paid to tell people where the risks, the holes, the “opportunities for improvement” were, the weaknesses — not to sling a bunch of happy talk. 

For years I honed my ability to identify what’s wrong in any given situation, while my appreciation muscles, my gratitude muscles — were left to hang out and wither. 

Well, no more! I’m making my own perspective-shifting training camp, with the help of friends of course. And it’s paying off in happiness already. I’m gonna keep going.

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