This is what the weather was like here yesterday morning and many, many recent mornings as I’ve headed out to walk to work. Not really my definition of pleasant. Couple that with the fact that I’m not what anyone would call a morning person and it can be a bit of a struggle to motivate myself out the door and down the sidewalk.
But I hate being grumpy even more than I hate being cold, so as I shuffle through the wind and snow, I play a few rounds of the “Well at Least” game. As in, “Well at least plowing through all this stuff is really building up my leg muscles!” or “Well at least once I get to the office I won’t have to run downstairs every two hours to feed the meter, as I would if I drove.” And, once a week, “Well at least it’s Friday and I can rest up over the weekend.”
I don’t know about you, but I can only really cheer myself up if the benefits are derived directly from the task at hand (or the fact that it’s nearly done). “Well at least I have a job” or “Well at least I have legs” are too big-picture and disconnected from the moment to work for me.
Do you have games like that to get you through unpleasant moments? Does big-picture thinking help or do keep it small and shallow, too?
I found this little post over on Apartment Therapy and thought some of you might enjoy it too. The Lazy Woman’s Guide to Living Without Piles and Clutter is a fresh take on organizing/decluttering that lets you actually work with your personality instead of getting tough with yourself.
Enjoy!
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You too?? I didn’t ever name it, but I play the “Well, at least” game a lot too! I wonder how many others are playing it and don’t even realize?? hahaha
I wonder what else we’re playing, too…
My constant thought is
“This is really going to seem like such a pleasant walk come this spring and summer,….. I am really going to enjoy/appreciate/feel great about this walk in the nice weather w/o snow on the paths!”
I am aching for the moment the snow melts away…
I play a slightly different version of what is essentially the same game:
“If I wasn’t caught in this traffic, maybe I would have been hit by a transport truck down the road…..”
“If I DID have my passport, I’d have been asked to drive people to the Detroit airport….”
“If I HAS cleaned out this mess, I wouldn’t still have this…… that I now need.”
Oh, wait, this is dissolving to a whole other issue……
Hee hee. It’s such a short hop from counting our blessings to making excuses…
Well at least I have a great buddy to walk with. And she is still in touch with her inner child, just like me!!!
Yay!