Get To.

About a week ago, I mentioned that I was going to write a post on "Get To", and I just never did.

Time got away from me. But after the day I had yesterday, I made the time. It's that important for me to share this philosophy with you guys.

It's changed my life.  In a pretty great way.

I was running late yesterday on my way to work (about 10 minutes). It was just late enough to make me feel flustered and way behind.

To save myself another 20 minutes of parking and walking back to the office, I parked in the garage a block from work. WHEW.

I grabbed my bag and my lunch, and started on my fast and furious one block walk. 

I was in. The. Zone.

No one could stop me.

Not paying attention.

Shoot, there's a guy on the corner giving out magazines.

Do not look at him.  Do not make eye contact.

Keep walking.

Just look away.

Then I realize he's missing an arm and a leg.  I thought "Oh man, should I take the magazine to be nice?!"


No, keep walking, Adrienne. No eye contact. You're late!

So I keep going. Looking straight ahead.

I walked feverishly past the man with the magazines, and he said to me "you look beautiful, miss."

And I stopped.

Dead in my tracks.

I turned around, smiled and said "thank you". Then I kept walking to work.

In that moment, I realized what a complete jerk I was being, to someone I didn't even know!  Because of how MY morning was going, I was being rude to this kind man.  And here, I have so much to be thankful for.

So I started thinking about all of the great things in my life, and it brought me to a place of being thankful for all the things I "Get To" do every day.  Things that some people, like the magazine man on the corner, cannot.  Things that I take for granted.

There are certain things that we all dread doing - taking out the trash, changing cat litter, speeding up the pace on the treadmill, *insert your dreaded things here*.

Anyway, the new philosophy is this...

I get to take the trash out! I get to walk/run a little faster on the treadmill! I get to change the cat litter!  Yup, I get to do all these things that some people cannot. Even the mundane, we should be happy for. 

It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it makes those little tasks a bit easier to accomplish, because you put a positive spin on it. Instead of feeling so obligated that we've got to go do these things, we feel thankful that we are able to.

So what are you doing to "get to" do today?!