Gilli was a glorious yoga teacher back in JC.
One day she discussed the idea that you many times can’t control any given thing that happens to you. But you can control how you react to, think about, and feel toward it.
Say you’re on the 5th floor of a walk up. You’ve got a choice. You could choose to be annoyed about needing to climb stairs all the time. Or you could choose to be thankful that your daily routine contains built-in exercise. And that your legs work well enough to climb stairs. And that building techniques and materials allow buildings tall enough for cities to be conveniently dense.
I love this mindset, but recently our radiator challenged me to “find the good in the situation.”
The situation is the radiator makes loud noise every day at 5am. It lasts about 15 minutes (used to be longer) and wakes us both up like clockwork.
I’ve never experienced a consistent sleep disruption like this before. It’s stunning how much it degrades your energy. The whole situation is really easy to complain about. I’ll readily admit to feeling an urge to cry.
However, in the back of my mind, I did see a potential benefit.
I joked about it at first, but this could be “the thing” that finally triggers the habit of rising at 5am every day. Knowing any sleep after 5 is useless just might be the inspiration needed to hit the sack early enough to get up.
I’ve long struggled with this goal. In the end, the radiator could be the thing that finally helps me achieve it. Seeing this opportunity helped me reclaim some peace about the situation. Soon, I may smile every time it kicks on in the morning. And that’s way better than the alternative of frustration and rage.
This has been a major challenge to turn a seemingly negative situation into a positive one. It’s also further proof that I’m the one who gets to choose.