Thank You

So I went to the library right before I left for my mini vaca and I was looking for the latest Sophie Kinsella book.  As I was browsing the new books this one jumped out at me.  It was just the kind of book I subconsciously needed. Thankfully.

I was reading a little before getting out of bed yesterday morning and all of it really hit home with me.  One of the topics was Buddhist principle that the Jewel is in the pearl.  A pearl started out as an imperfection in the oyster.  A speck of dirt that the oyster took and caressed and cultivated it into a perfect pearl.  We too need to take the things about ourselves that we view as imperfections and cultivate them until they give us or teach us the way to make them strengths.

OK...I get this.  As I got a lot of other ideas this morning as I read.  I really tried to think about gratitude and thankfulness as I went about my day.  I was really making some progress and felt very good .

Until...(OK you must have realized that there was going to be an "until"...)

I have many imperfections, as we all do, that I can learn to cultivate and work on and turn into a stregnths.  One of these became smack-me-in-the-face-and-call-me-Wanda obvious as I had to drive my son from our house about 30 miles south to his friends house by a certain time. 

Ready for it...

I am oh so very impatient with driving. 

Duh...

Now I hate being late, I just do.  It drives me nuts-oid.  I get so stressed about it.  However, when you live in LA being late is just the way things are.  You can never leave enough time to get somewhere because there is ALWAYS some sort of traffic situation that causes you to be late.  Do you see the problem here?? 

Me not liking to be late + LA traffic = Jewel in the pearl concept thrown by the concrete-path-to-hell wayside. 

Now I don't give up that easy. 

As I am sitting in traffic behind PEOPLE WHO DRIVE UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT IN THE FAST LANE, I was taking deep breaths trying to "cultivate and caress this particular imperfection" but I just wanted to scream.  My son was really trying to help me as he was seeing that I was really trying to get my stress under control.  He would point out billboards for movies that we might want to see and talking to me about the song on the radio.  He was really a blessing that I was very grateful for (see...working on my gratitude.)

THEN...(you knew there was going to be a "then")

My gas light went on.  Now again I realized that waiting until the last minute to put gas in my car may or may not be one of those "imperfections" that I need to "cultivate". 

Wow...talk about stress.

Morals of the story:

1 - We weren't late, so the stress was for naught. I am thankful for that.
2 - I didn't run out of gas.  I am thankful for that.
3 - I had an opportunity to work on some imperfections so that maybe next time I can do a little better.  I am  thankful for that.
4 - I have an amazing son who is such a blessing in my life.  I am thankful for that.
5 - The rest of my day was a grouchy mess.  It is so true that when we de-rail our positive grateful thinking it puts such a negative spin on our lives.  Now realizing that is something to be thankful for.

I can't wait to read the rest of the book.

More Later

- A Ro