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quote about perspective

How to Overcome Dread: Get “Through” Something You’d Rather Go “Around”

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Quote About Perspective by Dr. Wayne Dyer
Dread. verb

  1. to fear greatly;
  2. to be in extreme aprehension of;
  3. to be reluctant (to do, meet, experience)

Dread.  Even the word, itself, seems marinated in evil and ill will, doesn’t it?  Yet, ironically, most of the things we dread aren’t marinated in much more than inconvenience or maybe a little self doubt.

Many people dread going to work each Monday morning. For 12 years, I dreaded going to school each Monday morning. And Tuesday, and Wednesday…

I think a lot of Monday dreads come from the fact that it’s on the other side of Paradise, also known as the weekend. Weekends are brief little reminders of how things could be if we were 4 years old and Monday morning is nothing more than a big mean time machine.

No wonder it has such a bad rep.

Many issues in life, however, feel heavier than Mondays.  Whether it’s a public speaking engagement, a wedding role, a dentist visit, or any event that feels like a black cloud following you around, you have to remind yourself to keep things in perspective. A reminder is often needed because, let’s face it, once our emotions get involved, reason AND perspective fly right out the window.

Keep it in Perspective, Chief

  1. The event will, more likely than not, be a ONE and DONE type event. It’ll probably last, at most, a mere few hours out of ONE day. A ONE and DONE.  Each minute you spend agonizing over it takes the ONE and multiplies it. If you, collectively, spend an hour agonizing over the event, you’ve taken a ONE on a stress scale and made it a SIXTY. That’s simply giving it much more power than it deserves.
  2. If the event is, admittedly a minor event, think of times in your life when you’d have loved to have traded places. A girl I knew in high school always amazed the rest of us. Not only did she not dread and agonize over giving speeches in class, she almost seemed to enjoy it. Never being one to shy away from asking questions that needed to be asked, one day I questioned her about it. Turns out she had spent a lot (as in months on end) of time in a children’s hospital and  had endured (at that time) several grueling surgeries. She said that she used to get really nervous about speaking in front of class until her father told her one night, “Leslie, you’ve lived through far worse than this. You lived through 10s… this is a 2.”  She told me that it rang a bell for her and that, after than night, any time she felt overwhelmed by anything, she heard his voice. Perspective.
  3.  Ask yourself, “Is the dread coming from a lack of self confidence?” If it is, ask yourself a follow up question, “What are three proactive things you can do to make yourself feel more confident.” If you’re like me (God love you), it may be as simple as a great new top or earrings that are “to die for.” If the event or situation will involve something you don’t feel very knowledgeable about, brush up on the subject.  Armed with knowledge and a snazzy new top, you’ll feel unstoppable and may even begin counting the days to to the event rather than dreading them.
  4. Proceed with caution with this one, but some people soothe their nerves by asking, “What’s the worst that could happen?” I’ll be honest, my imagination is far too advanced and far too outrageous for me to even attempt this one, but if you’re a normal person, this may work well for you! Again, it’s all about perspective.
  5.  While the tip above is out of my league, I’m all over this one: Find the silver lining, even if you have to sew it in yourself. There may be 110 million things I am unable to do in this world, but one that I pretty much own is the ability to find the good in bad, the beauty in ugly, and the positive in the negative. I know that God endows us all with certain talents and abilities and I thank Him for this particular ability – it has carried me through many storms in life. No matter what you’re dreading, look for the positive. Find the silver lining and focus entirely on it. Even if it’s as simple as, “This will soon be over and I’ll never have to dread it again.”  Search out the “pretty” and stare at it like it’s the most beautiful sunset you ever saw.
  6. Thinking about things you’ve dreaded in the past.  More times than not, your “past dreads” turned out better than you’d hoped. Before beginning this article, I thought back to the “minor dreads” I’d experienced in life. (These, of course, don’t include things such as funerals or surgeries – they’re anything but minor and require more than seven tips to survive.) Not only were my past dreads not worth the hype I’d given them, I actually didn’t mind them in the least. Many times, things I dreaded turned out to be downright enjoyable.
  7. Be smart about where you put your energy.  Many times when we dread something, we spend an embarrassing amount of time trying to “get out of it.”  We’ll pray, bargain, plan, scheme… anything to find our way around the inevitable. Wouldn’t that time be better spent preparing for the moment or…. I don’t know… living?  Dreading isn’t living!

Keep everything in perspective and don’t create a monster out of a mosquito.

~ Joi

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” – Dale Carnegie

 

Driven to Distraction by Gnarly Gnats

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Perspective Quote
Most people list flies, mosquitoes, ants, bees, and spiders as their least favorite “pests.”  Spiders even pull double duty and find themselves high on lists of phobias.  I don’t understand that one, personally.  I kind of like the creepy little buggers.  I could watch one working on her web for hours. Such skill and showmanship.

I don’t really have anything against ants or bees either. In fact, I admire any species which answers to the queen.  I also approve of each group’s enthusiasm and work ethic.

As for flies and mosquitoes – I’ll admit, they can be pretty bothersome.  Worst picnic guests EVER.

However, you know where you stand with flies and mosquitoes. They aren’t as deceptive, underhanded, and vile as the pest that I call the worst of the bunch: GNATS. Seriously, is anything as annoying or as hard to get rid of as GNATS?

Our house is outside of the city limits. We’re, literally, surrounded by trees – many of which are apple or pear trees.  Normally, I’m crazy wild about this arrangement.  However, toward the end of summer, gnats can be a bit of a problem.  In the past, they’d make their presence known and I’d wipe out their population in no time flat. However, the army of gnats that attacked us this year have proven to be a very formidable opponent.

I wipe out one battalion and three more take their place.  You don’t see spiders or bees doing anything as hostile as that.

Many spider haters scream, “Thank God!” right about now.

It’s almost funny, isn’t it?  Sometimes we can stand up valiantly to the big things in life…. only to wind up in the corner shaking and crying over something extremely small.  Okay, maybe I didn’t cower and cry in a corner, but the gnats didn’t exactly bring out my best side.  I did, however…

  • ….ask God what He had in mind when he created gnats
  • ….threaten to chop down each fruit tree with an ax
  • ….wonder just how cold it is in Alaska
  • …. hurl a word that’s normally reserved for stubbed toes

Toward the end of summer, I came across something that worked like a charm for me.  I’m not talking about a magical potion to trap or kill gnats (although, with the research I’ve done, I could now write a book on the subject).  I’m talking about a little sanity preserver when things are  driving us all kinds of crazy.  When we’re stomping around, making a face so ugly it’d frighten small children, and reaching deep into our bag of four letter words for one that rises to the occasion.

Thanks to a colony of gnats that kept gathering around our outside cat’s water dish, one day I came across the best four letter word of all.

There I was, swatting like a woman possessed as our outside cats (Hannah and Fatima) took turns watching me, exchanging bewildered looks with one another. You know… the kind of crazed expressions all kids make behind their parent’s back.  I also noticed that our inside cat (Alexa, the diva) was watching me from the kitchen window.  If she had a “thought bubble,” it would have read “Poor thing’s finally snapped.”

She wouldn’t have been entirely wrong.  Angrily swatting through the air with my fly swatter I must have looked like a band leader on crack.

In the middle of great annoyance and anxiety, a reasonable inner voice finally spoke up:  “It’s just gnats.”

Yes. JUST gnats.  Somehow, the simple little word J-U-S-T calmed my psyche and made the world a more reasonable place again.  Instead of seeing tiny flying demons taunting me as they dodged my wrath with gracefulness I almost admired, I, once again, saw the beautiful world around me.  I didn’t hear my grumbling and mumbling any longer. I heard birds singing and the wind blowing through the leaves.

One word! And a four letter one, at that.  They have such a bad rep.

Later that same day, I had a plugin catastrophe on one of my blogs. It was a plugin I used frequently on that particular blog.  A beloved plugin on a beloved blog. I didn’t even have time to flinch.  The same inner voice who’d had so much success earlier in the day whispered, “It’s just a plugin.”

Does everything in life respond to the word just? No, of course not.  SHOULD we whip it out willy nilly in an attempt to be as care free as a hippie in the Seventies?  Oh, heck no. Think about the words, themselves: CARE FREE.  That means being free of care – and when is that ever an entirely good thing? We should care about the things and people around us.  However, we should always strive to stay in control.  If we CAN change something that needs to be changed, we should do everything in our power to do so.  The thing is, we have to keep the right perspective.

The next time you find yourself coming unraveled over something, ask yourself if it’s really worth the effort.  I think that’s why a lot of people stay on the brink of a nervous breakdown – they lack perspective. If they’d realize that they react to standing in line with the same level of rage they muster for a broken ankle, they’d  realize they need a little perspective.  That, and a new favorite four letter word.

Just a thought.

Make that JUST, a thought.

~ Joi