A friend of mine often says, “you can’t hear the dogs that don’t bark.” While he is typically raising the point that only the squeaky wheels get the grease and that news media doesn’t tell the whole story, and so a wise consumer must ask the questions that have been unasked, there is another way to to use this tool. If you used the tool I’m going to describe every day, your life would automatically be so much more blessed and joyful than it currently is. Have I gotten your attention?
The human condition is strange – when we start a sentence such as ‘what if…’ we would typically come up with a future calamity. At least, in our heads we do this.
What didn’t go wrong for you this past week? Did you count those blessings, and name them one by one? You see, we tend to only think of blessings that did happen, not of the problems that didn’t.
Last week, I got a text from a friend saying, “my brother is on the fire dept. and says they’ve been called out because you have an apartment building on fire.” I stood there, stunned, checked my insurance coverage (I started with a new insurer less than two weeks prior and realized that I hadn’t paid any premium yet even though my broker said he had bound coverage…) and then thought, wow, things might be a little difficult to manage this while in Europe, and I trust no one was hurt. My friend said he would drive by and see–30 minutes later, he joyfully informed me that it was not my building. While feeling sorry for the owner, I suddenly had a GREAT day. My whole family was relieved. I discovered in that moment how much I had failed to appreciate when things DON’T go wrong in my life. Wow, what a free blessing that take no money, no time, no luck….just a change in perspective!!
Try it. Do it often. Share the results with me.