If you’re like me, or the other 1,000,000+ people who call this city home, you probably scoffed at the scattering of white flurries and ice that lined the lawns and roads this morning as you looked out your window and reluctantly dug out your cold-weather boots and car scraper. Some of you may have left the house early on your morning commute, only to find that the rest of the entire city had precisely the same idea. You might also have commented on the bad winter drivers - the drivers who either don’t change their driving habits to accommodate the slippery weather conditions, or those who drive as if it’s the very first time they’ve ever seen snow.
However, regardless of the not-so-ideal weather conditions happening outside of our windows, there is a perspective we can choose to adopt in our lives – a different way of “seeing” things - that will help to stop our attitudes from following suit and also freezing over. It may entail thinking out-of-the-box (along with a dash of creativity), but there is a meaningful silver lining to the situations life finds us in that are generally labelled as “negative” or “unfortunate”. We can choose to concentrate on these silver linings to help make our lives a little bit sunnier.
You can choose to be thankful for the heating bill in your mailbox, for it means that you have been warm. You can choose to appreciate the carpet you have to vacuum and the counters you have to scrub, for it means you have a house to live in. You can choose to be grateful for the load of homework you need to tackle, for it means you have access to education. You can choose to be thankful for the parking spot you finally locate at the far end of the parking lot, for it means you have been blessed with transportation and also with legs that can walk the distance. You can be grateful for the dinner you still have to cook even though you’re exhausted from work, because it means you have food to nourish your body. You can be grateful for the taxes you pay, for it means you are employed. You can appreciate your alarm clock that wakes you in the early morning, for it means you have the health and strength to rise to meet the day. You can choose to be thankful for struggles and challenges in your life, for once you overcome them you learn something new and grow as a person, as well as re-discover your own strength.
Similarly, we can even find reasons to be thankful for the snow and the cold. The cold intensifies the pleasure of life’s little “warm luxuries”, such as hot chocolate, soft fuzzy socks and cuddling by the fireplace. The coming of winter means that the lively Christmas season is near. Feeling the cold now makes us appreciate Calgary’s sunny and warm summer days that much more when they are upon us. And everything looks that much more magical blanketed in a layer of glittering snow and frost.
As we approach these delicate last few weeks between Thanksgiving and the approaching Christmas season, let’s work to keep in the forefront of our minds the many small ways we are blessed that often go unrecognized… even when we are on our way outside to shovel the snowed-over driveway.
- Jennifer Fast, New Media Specialist, The Mustard Seed
@loveismotion222
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