Little Victories

This morning I picked up the half and half to put it in my coffee. My husband and I both drink coffee, and we both use half and half, so I buy it by the half gallon. Yes, a half gallon of half and half. And yet with all those halves, we never seem to get whole. Anyway, I picked up the container, only my hand didn't realize I was picking up the container, and the container promptly slipped out of my hand and onto the floor. Half of a half gallon of half and half that my hand didn't want to hold onto. I expected a big mess to clean, but lo and behold, the cap was screwed on to the container, so nothing spilled!

It's little victories like this that can put me in a good mood for the entire day.

I'm not exactly sure where “there” is, but you get the idea...

I stumbled, but did not fall. WIN!

I didn't have to fight this morning to get the kids off to school. WIN!

It's sunny. WIN!

My son remembered his gym stuff and cross country stuff. WIN!

Of course, not everything went perfectly today. My daughter forgot her water bottle, I colored my hair and it's darker than I expected it to be, and I dropped the package of grapes while packing lunches, and all the loose grapes went in different directions. The point is, for me, it's all how I look at things.

I tend to focus on the positive (shocker, I KNOW!) more often than not. I choose to look at the best possible scenario. I save playing out the worst-case scenarios in my head for when I'm trying to fall asleep, like a normal person. I believe people are basically good. I'm not oblivious to the negative stuff, I just choose not to focus on it. For me, it eats up the precious little energy I have. I find it to be draining on me.

I tend to avoid conflict whenever possible. Sometimes, it's just not important to be right. That saves me energy, too. Like you, I have a finite amount of wherewithal to use. Only when mine runs out, it's gone, there is no “just a little bit more”, no pushing, I'm just done. One MS blogger calls it “sit down or fall down”. Some days mine runs out before I've had my second cup of coffee.

A classic dilemma I face on a regular basis is that I need to shower before I go out. Most people do. But showering uses energy, too (standing, maintaining balance, washing my hair, those are all things a lot of people just do without thinking about doing, where I have to account for using energy to do those things), so I need to rest after showering, I need to rest while drying my hair, then I need to summon up all of my gumption to go and do whatever it is I had to do.

But, little victories. I dried my hair without having to rest today. I have the energy needed to go and do what I have to do. So I'm going!