Cleaning Up My Attitude
I'm a positive, optimistic, glass-half-full person. But being a positive person is not the same as being thankful. Thankfulness doesn't come naturally to me. Here's an example:
While doing laundry, I was lamenting my lack of laundry room. I was complaining to myself about how I have to stack my laundry basket on my dryer. You see, I have a laundry closet, if you can even call it that. Nasty, louvered, bi-fold doors slide open to reveal a washer and dryer, atop which sits my laundry basket. With four children, clothes regularly overflow either onto the washer or into the irretrievable crevice between the dryer and the wall.
Somewhere during this discourse, I realized the problem: my attitude. True, I didn't have a laundry room. But I DID have a washer and dryer! There was a time when I had to go to the laundromat and feed quarters into someone else's machines. There was a time when I had a washer or dryer that was on the brink of extinction. I did each load holding my breath, wondering if the load would finish before the machine let out its final groan. But this day-this day-I had a nearly new washer and dryer that cleaned clothes with a whisper and dried clothes on the first pass!
In that moment I realized that happiness is not found in what I have. Happiness is found in my PERCEPTION of what I have. I can choose to perceive my possessions, my relationships, my job, and my family from a perspective of abundance or from a perspective of lack. When I focus on what I don't have, that obscures my view of what I do have.
How about you? Where is your focus? Are you looking at what you don't have? Or are you thankful for what you do have?