Tales From The Circ Side

Your Attitude Is Due For A Renewal

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Acutal representation of my internal being for most of the day today.

Do you ever have a day where you want to throw Carolina Reaper Pepper sauce dipped cotton balls at members of the human race? I know, that was probably oddly specific, but honestly, today I'm not feeling like a very Positive Practicing Purveyor Of Perpetual Patron Problem Perfecting. Or something like that.

This morning, as I was attempting to help a rather brash and irritating creature, one who possessed an incredibly entitled and demanding demeanor, I found myself in dire need of an attitude check, or renewal so to speak. The older I get, the more entrenched I seem to become in my behavioral patterns of daily conduct. Even though I have an overall demeanor of whimsy and a perpetual desire to learn new things, sometimes I get mired in the mundane. This phenomenon occurs when I get too bogged down in the business of being a "responsible adult" and completing all the tasks encompassed within that job description.

It's easy to lose your sense of humor when you are adulting. That little facet of one's personality can easily get lost between changing the fifty-third load of laundry for the day and hauling your daughter's heifer to a neighboring ranch for a Bangs vaccination. As someone who wasn't fully human until I was at least fifteen, I try to remind myself of the glorious time when I dwelt in the halls of my super vibrant imagination. You shouldn't let that part of you be shelved just because you are being a productive grown up.

One of the main reasons for keeping contact with your sense of wonder and humor is for when your attitude is in dire need of a pick me up. I'll admit it, I would love a week in the interior of Mongolia right now. Just give me a sturdy Steppe horse, some dehydrated meals, an additional pack horse with a selection of books, and a yurt out in the vast Mongolia emptiness and I would be happy as a cat in a creamery. Don't get me wrong, I love people, but they always NEED something, and sometimes I just NEED a break.

That said, when Little Miss Demand Hands was being such a Veruca Salt to me this morning, even though I responded with a smile like I always do, I am reasonably sure that the sentiment didn't reach my eyes, for on the inside I was imagining what it would be like if she tripped and demanded an audience with the ground. This vehement irritation that I experienced caused me to have a moment of pause. Usually, when I am not exhausted or in need of some good old fashioned self care, I tend to analyze a rude person as I am interacting with them. I find it helpful to find an attribute of the insolent creature that is positive and then I also deduce things about their situation from that bit of deduction. Once I craft a personification template for them I tend to apply a bit of empathy to areas that I deduced are issues for said creature and like that my entire attitude toward them is (usually) modified.

All of this happens in real time with everyone whom I interact with. Yes, it might seem a bit odd, but over the years I have just come to accept that this is my normal and it doesn't have to be that way for everyone else. However, attitude modification is an important tool that I believe everyone can benefit from, for it is really easy to become mired in a bad frame of mind and to get stuck in a "poor me, everyone sucks" loop. No one benefits from negative waves.

I find that staring at this birthday pie I made @jacobtothe improves my mood considerably...

So, I am going to go pursue an avenue of positive trait detection and attitude modification. This bit of a ramble has made me a touch curious about how you all run a derailed attitude back on a more positive track. Heck, I would even like to hear from resident curmudgeons who prefer to stay grumpy and crotchety all the time! Release the comments!!

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's perpetually perky and all sorts of quirky iPhone.

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