A Change in Attitude

SO...I came home one afternoon after a very long day.  I'd been volunteering and it was a HOT Saturday afternoon.  I opened up the door & found this.  My two dogs decided to get into the trash.  Not anything that anyone wants to come home to but.....shortly after this happened, something changed in me & how I look at things like this.   

I can't tell you exactly what or exactly why, other than this...  I saw a picture online one day.  It was of an older adult.  The picture exuded pure joy.  

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Something in the picture connected with me in a way I'd never experienced before.  I looked at it & thought, I want that kind of joy in my life every day.  Why don't I have that in my life EVERY day?   Here's why.  I let people & circumstances steal my joy.  I let them drag me down, I focus on the negative instead of moving forward.  I'm 46 years old & I know I will not be here forever.  It's time to just embrace life.  To a adapt, improvise & overcome.  I'm a worrier by nature so this is WORK for me to change my attitude but I am working on it.  I'm trying to roll with whatever life brings me & do my best to minimize the day to day insanity.  

As a full-time working mom, life is full of insanity.  My job is higher stress type of job.  I'm a corporate litigation paralegal.  In the last few years, I did some things to minimize my stress.  I took a job that is literally 7 minutes from my house - 3 miles away after commuting to Kentucky for 5 years (for a job I loved).  My daily commutes alone were incredibly stressful regardless of all I did to mitigate that (like working 7-3 to try to get ahead of rush hour).  My job in KY was stressful but I loved my bosses & my co-workers.   It was a very tough decision to leave that job but it made the most sense to take the job closer to home even if it meant that I would take a cut in pay (which a lot of is made up in the time I gained back, less stress & less gas, wear & tear on my car, etc.).  I have a teenage daughter & there are just not many ways to reduce the stress that brings but I'm doing my best (and praying a lot).  I started running - like, seriously running.  In May, I did my first 1/2 marathon.  Running has become something I love to do, it brings me peace & joy (which is really weird because I always hating running.) 

I spent a few days after seeing that picture of pure joy reflecting on 2017 - on decisions that I made to change my life for the better.  I thought about how we're always changing, evolving and that's a good thing.  So I'm working very hard right now to change my way of thinking, which is not an easy task but I'm up for the challenge.  If I could run a 1/2 marathon at 45, I think I can change my way of thinking to just embrace life -  To find PURE JOY in every day.  

I have read about starting a gratitude journal & think it sounds lovely, except that I don't think I'd actually journal daily.  So instead, I'll try to write down one thing each day in a journal that brought me pure joy. I will be grateful for my life & focus on the positives.  I'll do my best to roll with the negatives.  I'm going to try to do this via my Instagram account.  Follow me @inmylittleworldinoh on Instagram.