Choose to Enjoy!

Purple happens to be a favorite color!

Recently, my brother was telling me a story. For his birthday, he went out with a bunch of his friends to see a cabaret Star Wars parody show. I know, right, how awesome is that?!

He then goes on to mention how he’s made the choice to experience everything with an open mind and a “this is going to be best” attitude. Whereas, one of his companions looks for things to scoff at and when asked, will respond, “eh, it was …okay?”

We laughed about that and then talked about how you can choose your attitude and the affect that will have on the events you enjoy (or don’t) as well as your everyday outlook.

I see this with my two sons all the time. When they were younger, say middle school age, regardless of what we were doing, they were all “I don’t want to go,” or “this is going to be dumb.” Sure enough, at the end of the night, I’d ask “So, how’d you like it?”

“It was dumb.”

Well, yeah, of course it was. You set that expectation up for yourself. I’ll admit, when I was younger, I did the same thing. I would set up my expectations either so astronomically high that nothing could reach them, or I’d set them extremely low, and would still end up disappointed.

A good friend that was so frustrated with me that he asked, point blank, “Why can’t you just enjoy?”

That got me to thinking and reflecting. I started to change my ways. Rather than looking for things to criticize, I opened my mind to enjoy. To applaud the bar band that was up there, trying their best. I stopped reading movie reviews beforehand so I could enjoy the movie on its own merit. I started looking for the best, and I noticed I had a much better time. My friends did, too!

I tried applying that idea to my daily life – how or where can I find the good, the awesome, the beauty in the day-to-day routine? How can I support everyone I interact with? What’s one positive thing I can say?

I find myself smiling more. I look for opportunities to compliment people. It’s made each day an enjoyable mini adventure that’s building this journey.

Here’s my challenge for you today – go out of your way to consciously enjoy …whatever, just for what it is. Watch how just that simple change affects the rest of your day.