Change your perspective

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

If I woke up early this morning, and was stumbling to the bathroom to piss and stepped in cat shit it would make my day. Actually if I stepped in cat shit, slipped and fell into it, I would be fucking ECSTATIC!
-I was telling this to my friend last week and she started laughing and it inspired me to write this.

So why the hell would I be happy if I stepped in Kali’s shit?
Just a few weeks ago I was cleaning out her litter box, and was frustrated that I couldn’t use the $200 self cleaning litter box I bought awhile ago, it doesn’t fit at my new place. As I am scooping it I was thinking how sick and tired I am of cleaning this damn thing out.

Then Kali got sick

Real sick

Around 2 grand and a week later, all I know is she skin and bones and every time I looked at her I had to check if she was even breathing.
They put in a feeding tube and every few hours I had to squirt food thru it, not fun….
A week of that and she still isn’t doing better. I have never had a pet that was my own before. I am not even a fucking cat guy, my x-wife wanted one and I rescued her and ended up keeping her for the next 7 years. I have also never had a pet die on me, so was planning how to deal with everything if she didn’t make it and where I might bury her.
After an x-ray and more tests (goodbye $$) they decided to move her feeding tube a little higher up.

So by now it has been over a week since she has even taken a dump. Every morning I checked her litter box hoping to find one

All it took was a few weeks and I went from hating cleaning out her box, to feeling like a kid at Christmas hoping the box I was opening was the present I had been dreaming about! Then I even got to the point where I was hoping she had an accident somewhere in my place, and all of us with pets know the WORST way to find those is by stepping in them!
It’s almost like pets pull that shit on purpose. They don’t go and puke, piss, or shit over on the tile or vinyl floor, where we could clean it up with a few paper towels and then a once over with some cleaner,  they do it right in the middle of the room on the carpet, like a big FUCK YOU, this is YOUR FAULT! Or better yet, they do it right in our normal walkways so we step in it, always at the worst time, usually running late for something…

But even if any of those things happened, it would have made my day! Because I would have known her digestive system was starting to work again, which was one of the signs we were waiting for to see if she was going to pull thru.

….think that is enough talk about shit, but that got me thinking

It is all our perspective, if we don’t like something change it.

I didn’t need this to happen to appreciate that Kali was healthy and alive, but it is crazy how one change and all of the sudden something we hated, we are looking forward to.

Another example of this, one of my buddies sent me a picture of him with a girl he starting hanging out with. He is older, she is younger and pretty smoking.He emailed me a pic and added-

 

Shit, I feel like I’m getting OLD!
Look at this photo–she looks young and beautiful.
I look fucking old.
Tell me it’s not that bad.

My response was-

all I see is a man with a hot young chick!!!

A student I just did a coaching call with was emailing me, all of his friends were hooking up with chicks he opened that night. Of course he was pissed off and I told him he needs to have a heart to heart with his “friends” after to make sure they don’t do that shit again. BUT I did have to point out that he was responsible for everyone having fun that night, and all of his friends riding HIS COAT TAILS, not too bad and pretty cool progress in the big picture! (and once he fixes the dickhole friends angle, then should be awesome)

The only thing we have true control of in this entire world is ourselves and how we react to outside stimuli. So if you don’t like something, change the way you look at it.

One of the biggest examples of this are new guys who get into Pick Up. The want to be hooking up with hotties and strippers after a week or two. When they aren’t, they get pissed and frustrated. They always want to compare themselves to other people, guys on the forum, or guys they read about in a book.

DON”T

This never was a problem for me, I think from my martial arts training and tactical training I learned how to live in the moment. During force on force gun training, me thinking about what might happen a room or two from now divided my focus, and made me perform less effectively in my current training scenario and because we were using sims or paintballs, if I wasn’t on point I would get shot. Getting shot hurts, so you learn very quickly to focus, to avoid the pain.

I understand that most of you haven’t been in situations like that, but you can still understand the principle behind it. If you are jamming out on a guitar with your buddies, are you thinking about what you MIGHT be playing 5 mins from now, no you are playing music now and trying to make it sound good.
Just like painting, you want to think about the final product, but you should be focusing as much as you can on your next brush stroke, THAT is the one that matters RIGHT NOW, not the one 15 mins later.

Focusing on the negative, worrying about the future, not making the most of what is going on right now is killing you.
If you are you need to shift your perspective, instead of thinking “I talked to 20 chicks tonight and didn’t get to SNL any of them” you should be thinking -WOW I went out and talked to 20 new people, had fun, and might make some cool contacts out of them for later. I wouldn’t have been able to do that a few months ago!!”

Appreciate the small things, appreciate the things you take for granted, appreciate even the things that annoy you.
One day you might be missing them…

-and Kali update
she had her feeding tube taken out yesterday by the vet, is putting on weight, and eating a ton

she has also taken the biggest turds I have ever seen from her, and it put a giant smile on my face!