A portion of our daily walk
I walk with my neighbor, Brenda, four to six times a week. Last week she was out of town. Unfortunately, my motivation went with her and we both ended up on a brief “no walk” sabbatical. This week, determined to re-launch our partnership, we met at our normal 8:30 a.m. time. Before she left we’d enjoyed temps in the 60s and 70s – in November. This week, a cold front moved in and temps were in the teens, low twenties. {It’s nice folks to the north like to share cold fronts with Southern states, but stop it. Please. 🙂 } Brrrrr. Not only did we have to jump start our motivation; we had to bundle up to do it. Again. Brrrrr. Once we got going, of course, we warmed up – she has a quick step for a 65-year-old!
This morning, like most mornings, I spent a little time on Twitter before our walk. While there, Erin Kennedy’s @ErinKennedyCPRW retweet of Michelle J. Iseman’s @QueenSchmooze weather report floated by in the stream:
Erin said:
“Yuck. I thought our 7 degrees here was c-c-cold. RT @QueenSchmooze: Cold now -22C in Ottawa”
I added:
“Whoa! No complaints a/b 27º now. RT @ErinKennedyCPRW: Thought our 7º here was c-c-cold. RT QueenSchmooze: Cold now -22C in Ottawa”
See how Erin’s and my view changed because Michelle shared her morning reality. The thought of Ottawa’s MINUS 22ºC (-7F) made Erin’s Michigan 7º less daunting and my North Carolina 27º downright balmy. About a quarter of the way into our walk, I took off my gloves. Half-way through my hat came off and I unzipped my jacket just a bit. I know it sounds crazy, but viewing 27º against temps of -22C (-7F) and even 7º changed my entire perception of the morning. It wasn’t “freezing” as I told myself every other morning this week. It was now tolerable and we were fortunate not to have the true freezing temperatures that would have prevented our enjoyably morning constitutional.
I’m grateful for my perception reminder this morning. Hopefully it’ll help the next time you’re feeling defeated by a difficult task or you think you can’t do another job search-related thing. It really is all a matter of perspective. I proved it to myself yet again: The battle of the day is won in the mind.
Link to this page
Hey Dawn, Hello from your north Wisconsin friend… I have 19F right now… and this is what they are saying about wind chill: Wind Chill: 6 °F (-14 °C) I can’t see the ski hill today from my window because the snow is coming down so hard and the cloud cover is low. But though this would feel cold today. In January when we are likely to have highs below zero, this would be downright balmy… It is a matter of perspective.
You just gotta look at the bright side… job search or weather!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dawn Bugni, Julie Walraven. Julie Walraven said: RT @DawnBugni It’s all a matter of perspective http://bit.ly/fyWuzx #jobsearch […]
Dawn,
What a great example of how our perception can change everything.
You are so right! After reading Queen Schmooze’s tweet, I thought, “Wow, 7 degrees doesn’t seem so bad!”
Erin
P.S. It got to a balmy 28 degrees yesterday. 🙂