ramble
October 24, 2011

Been facing some selective vision problems today--no doubt a lack of sleep has something to do with it. (I was up most of the night, fighting the second nasty-ass cold I've caught in the past month!)

"Selective vision" is my term for those times when my mind refuses to see anything but the bad. The sleeplessness, the spilled coffee, the unusual number of red lights, the empty Aleve bottle--all those little things that make my mind pole vault to the conclusion that "this is going to be a bad day", and just write the whole thing off.

But if I make myself really look at what is going on around me, I realize that there are as many, or more, good moments coming my way this morning as there are bad ones. What about the unexpected cuddle from the dog this morning? The providential break in traffic just when I needed to merge? What about the fact that it STOPPED raining right before I had to walk the dog & leave for work? Hey, the boss AND the annoying co-worker in the next cubicle took the day off today! Checked my calendar--not one single meeting to deal with today!

I wish I was wired to do this naturally, but I really do not seem to be. Is it genetic, or just something I absorbed from my parents before the age of reason? Who knows?

Here's the thing, though. Forcing myself to think about the positives is helpful and makes my day go better, but the fact is, I DO have to force it. It is work; it requires vigilance and conscious effort on my part. And the negativity is engineered to strike at precisely those moments when I am too tired to pay attention, or to commit to the struggle for balance. So negative wins.

A lot.