green lights
~25 years ago, I was a harried and busy young woman. This was in the late 1980s in Dallas, Tx. I was hard working and ambitious. As a petite and young female in a very chauvinistic world, I had to work twice as hard as my male co-workers in order to climb the corporate ladder.
With my burgeoning career and as a mother to a 6 year old boy, I was always in a hurry - driving to-and-fro. As you can imagine I was often impatient when things didn't go my way. Whenever I was rushing around and I hit a red light, I would be very annoyed.
Once when sitting at a red light, I wondered to myself... 'I wonder if I pay attention when I hit a green lights if it will lessen my annoyance with hitting red lights'. So, I decided whenever I hit a green light I would do a vocal cheer and raise my arms in victory.
A funny thing happened - because i was paying attention to green lights - it seems the percentage of time I hit green lights was much greater than the red lights. I was shocked. I stopped being annoyed at red lights because I realized that I mostly hit green lights.
That was a powerful lesson for me to really pay attention to the good things - no matter how small. I accidentally changed my attitude. When you focus on the good stuff and celebrate even all the small joys of life - life in general seems so much better.
Which brings me to why I wrote this post. My mtn bike coach (who btw - is quite awesome) posted this video on Facebook and it reminded me that for 25+ years that I've been doing my 'green light cheer'. :)
Another 'green light' I experienced today was I got to run today. It's been a week but with rest and some PT (and taking it easy) I was able to run 4 miles (albeit slowly) without pain. I'm stoked I'll get to put in another whopping 4 miles again tomorrow!
postscript: A few years back I told my friend, Tom Keller the green light story. Tom can be very cynical, he laughed and said 'I can't decide - that is either the most profound thing I've ever heard or maybe it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard'. I just laughed - that Tom, never a dull moment. :)
With my burgeoning career and as a mother to a 6 year old boy, I was always in a hurry - driving to-and-fro. As you can imagine I was often impatient when things didn't go my way. Whenever I was rushing around and I hit a red light, I would be very annoyed.
Once when sitting at a red light, I wondered to myself... 'I wonder if I pay attention when I hit a green lights if it will lessen my annoyance with hitting red lights'. So, I decided whenever I hit a green light I would do a vocal cheer and raise my arms in victory.
A funny thing happened - because i was paying attention to green lights - it seems the percentage of time I hit green lights was much greater than the red lights. I was shocked. I stopped being annoyed at red lights because I realized that I mostly hit green lights.
That was a powerful lesson for me to really pay attention to the good things - no matter how small. I accidentally changed my attitude. When you focus on the good stuff and celebrate even all the small joys of life - life in general seems so much better.
Which brings me to why I wrote this post. My mtn bike coach (who btw - is quite awesome) posted this video on Facebook and it reminded me that for 25+ years that I've been doing my 'green light cheer'. :)
Another 'green light' I experienced today was I got to run today. It's been a week but with rest and some PT (and taking it easy) I was able to run 4 miles (albeit slowly) without pain. I'm stoked I'll get to put in another whopping 4 miles again tomorrow!
postscript: A few years back I told my friend, Tom Keller the green light story. Tom can be very cynical, he laughed and said 'I can't decide - that is either the most profound thing I've ever heard or maybe it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard'. I just laughed - that Tom, never a dull moment. :)
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