It's All About Perception

Driving home from church on Sunday night I noticed my car doing a weird shaking thing whenever it was idle at a light or just taking off from being stopped. Having absolutely no idea about cars I prayed that it was just a mere glitch and would work itself out by morning. To my dismay that was not the case. In fact, by the next morning it was acting worse. I actually could have made milkshake in my car if I had the right ingredients. So when I got to work I was considering my options.

1. I could call my dad and try to explain what was going on.
2. I could just take it to the shop and pray that I wouldn't get taken.
3. I could ask one of the men that I work with to check it out.

I chose number three (and actually number one as well later that night...there is just something about having your dad know what is going on with your car and give advice that settles one down) and asked Dan to check it out for me. Over the next hour Dan test drove the car, took me to AutoZone to have a diagnostic check on it for me (luckily it's just the spark plugs...we think), called another gentleman from our church, Dave, who knows lots about cars and had him come and check it out (which he's going to change the spark plugs for me) and also made sure that I bought the correct cleaning fluid that Dave recommended for my gas tank to clean out the fuel line or something like that.

Typically after having an experience like this I might be freaking out and whining about what a pain in the hiney cars are. Not yesterday though. Yesterday my viewpoint changed and instead of looking at the hassle of everything I couldn't help but see how lucky I really am. First, it was just the spark plugs and nothing worse. And second, I am surrounded by some great, great men. Men who didn't make fun of me because I knew nothing about what they were talking about. Men who were willing to take a good amount of time out of their day to help me figure out what was wrong. And men who made sure I was going to get the problem fixed and not let me drive my car if it was dangerous.

So, yeah, while I could choose to look at this from the vantage point of what is going wrong I've chosen to look at it from the point of what is going right. It's amazing how a situation can change just by the perception chosen. I wish I could do that with all of my situations or at least more of them.