The Gift of Renewed Perspective

I go in and out with a daily examen practice; when I use it, I discover both small and sometimes large things about myself. I realize that the small things can make the biggest difference in my daily life satisfaction.

I often take a late afternoon break and go through the drive in of my local Starbucks. Each day I ask the server to “not give me one of those plastic green stoppers” as I am trying to do my small part to keep plastic from overwhelming the world. Every single time - I get the stopper! My sweet and kind baristas are unconsciously providing those stoppers and no matter how many times I ask to not use them, they shove them down into the top. In the beginning of my attempts to be a bit kinder to the universe, this irritated me.

I would not have noticed my growing habitual attachment to a side order of irritation with my latte unless I were practicing the daily examen. It kept showing up in my daily review - and I did not like what I saw. I don’t want to be the girl with the scowl on her face every time a kind, underpaid but overly solicitous person gives me a cup of hot steamy coffee that I did not have to make for myself. The daily examen gave me the gift of a renewed perspective, one that eventually taught me how to find these small exchanges delightful.

I started by trying to practice gratitude over this small, insignificant matter. It became my own inside joke. Ask for no stopper; get the stopper anyway. This is an indication of a well-trained staffer. These stoppers may add to plastic pollution, but they also decrease the chance that I will spill my cup of joe.

Several months in, and I asked for no stopper - and got no stopper! This delighted me too. It turns out that gratitude muscles can be strengthened. I moved from having an expectation to living out of my highest value priority - appreciating others.

What pattern are you noticing in your own life that does not fit your core values? If this is not obvious, maybe adding a daily examen will be a practice worth trying.