One Minute Challenge...

I was at the gym today, and I was lucky enough to come across an abandoned "O Magazine"... so, I got the elliptical going and started reading, hoping it would take my mind off the next 30 minutes of turning my knees to jello! It worked... kind of...

Anyway, I was reading this article... and I know I am going to butcher it, and I also know it was copywritten to some extent... so here's the jist to avoid any type of confrontation...

A man was waiting in line at the grocery store and he was in a grumpy mood. He was in a bit of a hurry. The lady in front of him only had 1 item, but she didn't go in the express lane. Instead, she stood there, chatting with the cashier. The lady had a small boy with her, and the cashier was smiling at him and making funny voices. The lady even handed the cashier the infant for a quick minute. The man was getting impatient, and when he looked up, he caught the huge smile on the little boys face. The lady and the boy left, and the man moved forward.

"Cute kid," he said to the cashier.

"Oh, you think? He's actually mine. My husband was in the military and was killed in action about a year ago. I have to work full time now, and my mom tries to bring him in once or twice a day so I can see him while I am working."

The truth is that things aren't always the way that we see them. To us, something may seem to make perfect sense, so we accept it for what we believe it to be, or we get irritated when it doesn't work with our expectations. However, our perceptions could be as far from the truth as it gets.

My challenge to you is to take one minute today and try to dispell one of your personal perceptions! Maybe you feel like someone hates you, but you don't know why (or maybe you do... but that's not the point). It could be that you know exactly why your neighbor always parks their car in front of your house (you know... the car you called the HOA on), or maybe their dog is always barking in the middle of the night (admit that you yelled at the backdoor to 'shut that dog up!'). Maybe your reasoning for why these things happen are far from accurate. That hatred could actually be a bit of a misunderstanding, your neighbor's daughter could have just moved back in from a messy divorce and has to park in the street, or maybe the dog is deaf and can't hear that it barks all the time... and maybe the owner is too! :o)

Either way, start with just one... and then maybe you'll see a few more that you can attack without breaking a sweat! Who knows... maybe someone else is cutting you some slack, too!