The Power of Perception.

 Something unique happened to me today that I don’t remember ever happening before. I was thinking about my day around mid-day.  I determined that it had been a pretty good day thus far.  Then a thought popped into my head.  What if I made it a great day?  And just like that I determined that I would try to make it a great day.  And guess what…it worked.  Now nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary happened.  Instead I willfully tried to change my perception of the events that had unfolded/were unfolding/were about to unfold.  For some reason my good day became a great day.   Is life that easy that you can willfully change your perception/perspective like a superpower? By the power of thought can you really transform your day from bad to good or good to great?  I don’t know.  In all of my 57 years I had never tried this before. My day/week/month/year was either good, bad or neutral and I was powerless to do anything about it except look back in hindsight and make a judgement on what had occurred.  You would think that with all of my experience I would have figured this out sooner.  Perception is a tricky thing that is entirely 100% subjective.  I think it’s a little like one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  One person’s good day might be construed as another person’s bad day.  

I’ve done variations of this mind game before.  Like the whole Joel Osteen thing of focusing on what you have and not what you don’t have.  That really has worked and has given me peace and joy in a variety of situations.  For example when things weren’t going my way in certain aspects I would instead focus on the positives and my perception would change.  It made the difficult situations easier to endure.  For example, I used to see a therapist who convinced me that my marriage was bad and that I should be miserable.  But I was peaceful and joyful despite extenuating circumstances at the time.  (I no longer am seeing that therapist)  But I had never tried to manipulate my mood in a real time situation before.  As I was changing my perception, I thought back on all the positive things that had preceded that moment and started looking forward to positives that were bound to happen the rest of the day.  Suddenly my mood brightened.  Maybe it was a power of positive thinking thing or power of persuasive thought or blind faitha.  I don’t really know what it was but I was transformed into positivity.  The positivity bred hope.  The hope bred faith.  The faith made it a great day.  Now will this work every time?  I have no idea but it worked today.  

I think it all comes down to perspective.  Life is not as good or as bad as you make it out to be.  Things happen and our reaction to them makes them good or bad.  Now, I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog bemoaning and complaining about my situation.  I cried out because I was lonely, missed my wife, missed my kids, missed my dog, missed my house, missed my identity, missed my purpose…I missed a whole lot.  Now I perceived all those aspects as extremely miserable and negative.  Thus I was caught in a cycle of grief and despair.  But when I changed my perspective things started happening.  I might be alone, but I have more freedom.  I don’t have as many day to day responsibilities so I have more flexibility.  For example I had to teach a class tonight in Chapel Hill then rush back to take my oldest daughter to soccer practice late in the evening.  Her practice was unexpectedly cancelled.  So that gave me a chunk of 2-3 hours (factoring in the commute time) that I wasn’t expecting.  After a quick glance of my phone I found out a movie that I’ve been wanting to see (Running Man) was premiering at the Imax theater in Durham.  Being single/separated, one of the perks I gave myself was joining AMC’s A-List which means for $23/month I can see up to 4 movies a week. They are losing money on me as I have a whole LOT of extra time on my hands.    I love seeing movies (having seen over 20,000 estimated).  So after my class ended at 6, I still had 1.5 hours until the movie started.  That gave me enough time to eat dinner while I wrote this blog with time left over to relax.  The cool logistical thing is the Imax theater (I love seeing movies in Imax) is close to where I teach and close to where I’m having dinner.  It’s so convenient.  So rather than watching netflix/amazon at home I get to see the film I’ve been wanting to see in Imax.  I saw the original Running Man with Schwarzenneger back when I was in high school and loved the storyline then.  Now the remake is by my favorite director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim).  I’m jazzed.  Plus i get my girls and dog tomorrow which I’m absolutely stoked about.  So with just a change in focus I was able to turn a good day into a great day.  Yet as I reflected on my day through this blog I realized that a great day had just transformed into a fabulous day.  I can’t remember the last time I had a fabulous day.  I think I’m going to have to try to have more fabulous days in the near future.  It sure beats the days filled with grief and despair.  God is faithful.  He is revealing more of his faithfulness to me every day.