Baltimore Life Coaching – Christina Watson

 

One Saturday back in ’05, I parked at the meter outside my office building, ran inside for some papers (yes, I was diligently working on a weekend, again!) and when I returned, I had a parking ticket (also, again!) I looked at my watch 4:45pm – only 15 minutes left before parking was free. Then I looked up and down the street. There was not one car parked on either side of the main strip – only mine. And down there, all alone, about to turn the corner out-of-sight was the meterman. Slowly walking his way off-duty. 

Well grrrrrr, I was mad. “Didn’t he have anything better to do?” (ummm, no it’s his job) “There are only 15 minutes left.” Oh, I was steaming. I was about to huff it down there and give him a piece of my mind when this crystal clear thought somehow penetrated my brain: What if it’s a gift? Well, I had to stop for a moment to grasp that one. Then it started to dawn on me. I get to decide. Is what just happened a good thing or a bad thing? It’s up to me! Like Shakespeare says: “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

I began to play with this thought. If I get to decide, then any time I am fined anything – I declare it a blessing and something wonderful is about to happen to me.  I also decided that the money paid in the fine would come back to me times 7 in the next week. It became a great game. I never tried to get a ticket, but sometimes it would happen, given that I worked in a downtown area where the metermen got a commission on tickets issued! So I didn’t seek out a ticket, but any time I got one, I immediately declared: “It’s a blessing! Something great is about to happen.” I would even sing in my car, “How lucky am I??? I just got a ticket!! Yay!” Sounds silly, I know. But it really worked.

You see, we just don’t know if something is good or bad. You might get laid off from a job (bad) only to be offered a better job that you would not have been looking for otherwise (good.) So you go to the new job and the boss turns out to be a jerk (bad) but it causes you to strive for another higher position out of his department which you get with more money and with people you adore (good.) I could go on and on here. 

 

But my point is that if you will call everything good – your good can hurry up and get to you. It is when we stop and lament and complain and justify and blame that we clog things up and slow down the blessing. When you are looking for good things, you find good things. You can use anything as an excuse to look for them – even a parking ticket.