Grabbing Life by the Fruit

For a moment, do your best to put yourself in this situation... You're having a rough start to your morning, but you remember to grab a few items as you head out the door to eat for breakfast on your way to work. One of these items being an apple. Your stuck in traffic, stomach growling and you bite into the apple as you try to find a radio station that doesn't make your mood worse. Then you realize that your apple tastes different. It has a rougher feel as you chew and it is much sweeter than most that you've eaten. It doesn't taste bad, but it does not taste exactly like an apple. You know that you have tasted something similar before so you continue to bite the fruit while you try to figure out this familiar taste. Then it hits you, this apple reminds you almost exactly of eating a pear! You are thrilled momentarily to have made the connection, but then get annoyed of the fact that you specifically bought apples and should have paid more attention when making your selection. You stop eating the fruit and throw it out your car window as traffic begins to let up and you continue to work. 

Okay, now come back to me. The point of this story is not to figure out if you, indeed, did purchase the wrong fruit. But to show you how mindset impacts every single situation. Even ones as small as eating a snack in your car. Whether the fruit was an apple or a pear is trivial. Enjoying the fruit because, in that moment, you found it delicious and it fueled your body would have been the ideal reaction. Instead of eating the apple only to solve a question, you could have savored the sweetness of each bite for what it was. I could even go further to say that you could have been thankful in that moment that you can afford gas in your car, fresh fruit in your grocery cart and have a job to be going to. 

In everyday life this need to have productive reasoning behind every choice can be toxic. To view work only as a way to make money. To feed your child only because they are crying. To workout only to lose weight. Framing every day, necessary, acts negatively will result in a negative mindset that only allows you to build up an animosity toward them. If you place an activity in a negative frame, it WILL become a negative activity. This may be life altering news, but you can do some activities just because you like them. Gretchen Rubin in her book The Happiness Project actually writes "...it is easy to be heavy: hard to be light." Meaning that being unhappy takes less work than trying to be happy; which many of us can relate to. Reframing can change the way you live because how you see your life is how you live your life. You can live a happier, more present, more fulfilled life simply by altering how you view everyday occurrences. 

I am not saying that you should walk through life with eyes closed, biting into ever situation without any expectations or to be content with any outcome thrown your way. Drinking orange juice instead of water after you brush your teeth is, and will always be, unfortunate and reframing will not get that horrible taste out of your mouth. However, what I am arguing is that if you can come to the realization that you have control over how you think and feel in every situation, you will then establish more control over your life. I am sure you have heard some play on the saying "You can't change what happens to you. You can only change how you react to those moments." I 100% believe this to be true. Take each experience for what is it and challenge yourself to find the good in that moment. There is always something to be thankful for if you look hard enough. 

I challenge you to try this exercise today. Please don't wait for a horrible experience where you are truly tested, but practice with small unexpected instances in the moment that they are occuring. 

Life is unpredictable, but you have more control than you think.