Random stuff

This morning I read a blog post that I wrote in May 2016.  It was titled "Waking Up Happy" and it was good for me to read it this morning, because I have been in danger of waking up grumpy lately.  I lost my focus, and started paying too much attention to the negatives, and not enough attention to the positives.  I'm back on track now.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the brunch show at BB's Stage Door Canteen, at the National WWII Museum here in New Orleans.  The show was "Pictures of Marilyn" and presented snippets of the life of Marilyn Monroe from her time in a munitions factory during World War II until the founding of Marilyn Monroe Productions in late 1954.  The show was amazing, and the actress who played Marilyn, Courtney Boe, managed to capture the complexity of Marilyn Monroe, presenting both her vulnerability and her strength.

On Saturday, after walking the dogs and ourselves, we lunched at Station 6, a new restaurant in our neighborhood.  The food was great.  We ate outside on the patio in absolutely glorious fall weather.  Then we watched the University of West Virginia play an absolutely beautiful football game, ate some leftover gumbo, and then watched back and forth as LSU played a great game against Mississippi State, and the Chicago Cubs won their way into the baseball World Series for the first time since 1945.

Friday was the first real fall day in New Orleans.   After a walk along the lakefront, I went to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for gumbo for supper.  I asked my husband if he needed anything special, and he said no.  Fast forward to later in the day, and my husband asks if I picked up more Michelob Ultra for him at the store.  I hadn't.  That was the purpose of asking if anything special was needed.

So, I went to the store for beer, and had one of those wonderful experiences.  The young man working the register at the checkout was in the sixteen to eighteen age group.  Very handsome young man.  As he started to ring up my beer, he asked how my day had been.  I think he asked every customer.  So I looked at him, and smiled, really smiled and said "Great!  The weather is wonderful, my kids are coming over for supper to eat gumbo, just a great day."  And then he smiled back at me.  A real smile.  A smile with enough wattage to light a city block.  And so a conversation started.  "Are you planning your Thanksgiving food already?" he asked.  "I know there will be turkey and macaroni and cheese," I replied, "But not sure what else."  "Not Thanksgiving without turkey and mac and cheese," was his answer, "How about pie?"  "I like to make pumpkin tarts," I said, "More whipped cream per bite that way."  "Good thinking", he answered.  We parted ways both smiling and feeling wonderful.

As my husband would ask at this point, "Is this going somewhere?"  Yes, it is.  You see, the last few days have been ordinary, in the scope of life.  Yes, I ate at a restaurant.  Yes, my daughter and son-in-law came to dinner.  Yes, I saw a stage show.  Those are great things, but not winning the lottery great, or getting a perfect job great.

And it can be easy to take those everyday great things for granted and let them take a back seat to the inevitable aggravations that are part of life.  And that is what I mean about losing focus.  I could have gone to the store aggravated that I had to make a second trip, instead of amused that after twenty-nine years together, my husband and I still miscommunicate.  Had I been aggravated instead of amused, I may have missed a truly uplifting exchange with a stranger.  And there you go.

The life you have is a compilation of the things you give your time to, and the things you give your attention to.  The more time and attention you give to noticing and appreciating the positives, the more the positives accumulate and push away the negatives.

I know I have the choice to focus on the things I want to focus on.  I know I have the choice to respond positively or negatively to the events in my life.  It is easy when the noise in society is predominantly negative to forget that you can choose to tune it out.  I was forgetting.  I remember now why keeping my focus on the positive is so important.

There are millions of great people in the world who will light up your day with their smile if you just give them the chance.  Isn't that enough incentive to throw your positive energy into the universe to see what comes back?

Trust me.  Try throwing your positive energy out there for a while.  I promise you won't be disappointed with the wealth of good experiences that come back to you.