"It's a good day when no one is shooting at you"

This piece of perspective was given to me by someone I used to know: "It's a good day when no one is shooting at you." He said he was a Marine, so I felt it was a relative statement.  I don't know if he really was, a whole lot of things about him turned out to be lies, but these words stuck with me.  And I have used them more times than I care to remember in the past 5 years.

Perspective is all relative. When I told someone that my move is taking place in February, she looked at me kinda horror-stricken and gasped "oh my god, what if it SNOWS?"  Really?  That's the worst possible scenario that comes to mind for her?  Wow.  She puts into perspective for me that saying about "we aren't given more than we can handle".  But then, I did move from California to Pagosa Springs, CO in February of 1993 during the biggest snowstorm the San Juan mountains had seen in a couple of years.  I'm pretty sure I drove into town as more than 20 inches of snow fell; as did my mover. I had a 1-year old and a 13-year old disabled child to care for by myself. I remember there being so much snow packed up in front of the front door that we had to enter through the garage, open the front door from the inside and dig out to clear a path for the movers. So, I've "been there; done that". I'm certain that snow isn't really an issue for me. I also remember that was the first time Ceeanna ever saw snow and she squealed with joy playing in it.  She still loves it. I can count this as a good memory.

I recently ran across a blog that linked back to this First World Problems collection .  I laughed so hard I cried the first time I saw it.  My favorite on that list is "My laptop is low on battery, but the charger is over there..." How many times a day do we say these things in our head (or some of us out loud so we can truly prove what whiners we are)?

In my favorite movie  the character, Richard from Texas says to Liz from New York (or as he called her; Groceries) "Groceries, you need to learn how to select your thoughts, just the way you select what clothes you're gonna wear everyday." I'm going to add that we can learn to choose our perspective as well.  You can see the world through a dark, grimy window or the beveled glass one that produces shards of beautiful refracted light.  It's a choice.