36/365: Finding a New Perspective

I'm not sure what I expected when I started on this project. I know committing to anything long term can be a challenge. I believe the research says that you have to do something 21 days in a row to make it a routine in your life. I'm 36 days into my 365 project and still find myself rushing around some evenings to find photos. I have my camera with me all the time now. It's in my purse. I put it in my jersey pocket when I ride. But still some evenings it is 8PM before I start trying to snap photos. I think I assumed I would have lots of great opportunities to take pictures of the kids. I used to scrapbook before my time became eaten up by training, so maybe I thought this would give me a good reason to record all their cute moments. The evenings get away from me though.

This evening I snuck in a quick spin from Forest Park before my Team Rev meeting. I realized as I was sliding my camera into my jacket pocket, I hadn't taken any photos. I started looking around the parking lot to see what caught my eye. This is the lightpost that was in front of my car. I switched the camera to black and white to see the effect. I'm actually pretty pleased with the results. It got me thinking about perspective in general. What do I miss because I refuse to look through a different lens or from a different angle? The last week or so I've been pretty down, not at all my normal glass-is-overflowing self. I've felt like Eeyore.

Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water. "Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic." He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again. "As I thought," he said. "No better from this side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is."

I've been pathetic. I've let myself get caught up in seeing what is wrong instead of solutions and what is right. The old addages about making your own happiness are so, so trite, but also very true. I have been letting things that do not matter interfere with my outlook. My happiness and satisfaction are my responsibility. If work is getting me down, I can either find a way to make it better or find a different place to work. If finishing last at cx races is bothering me, I can remind myself that this is preparing me for crits, work at winning or quit racing. Nothing but my own poor disposition is filling my crabby bucket. So I say enough! I put on my happy girl panties this morning and set off to have a better day. So far, so good . . . the new perspective is a good one. It will take work to make it into a habit again, but it's a worthy task.