{"id":6137,"date":"2015-12-02T01:13:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T07:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=6137"},"modified":"2015-12-02T01:13:42","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T07:13:42","slug":"our-perception-is-our-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/our-perception-is-our-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Perception Is Our Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This statement is something all of us should really stop and think long and hard about\u2026Our perception is our choice\u2026There are many things in our life that ARE NOT our choice, for example &#8211; how the weather will be, or whether a person will fall in love with us or not, or whether we will get hit by another car while we are driving, or whether someone else will do something to hurt our feelings, or whether someone we trusted will betray us, or whether a loved one will be taken from us in death, or whether our children will grow up and move out, or whether we ourselves will age\u2026those are all things we don\u2019t really have a choice in the matter\u2026.but what we always have a CHOICE on is how we choose to PERCEIVE the things that happen to us.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a little story I once heard that paints this concept so clearly:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993366;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>HOW I FINALLY TAUGHT THE BIG GUY A LESSON<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993366;\">\u201cI did not provoke the fight, so I feel no remorse for what I was forced to do.\u00a0 We were arguing, and seeing that I was right and he was wrong, he decided to fight to cover his stupidity. \u00a0He swung at me first but being in the top of condition, I was able to block the punch neatly with my head.\u00a0 Whereupon I jumped to the ground, knocking him down on top of me. \u00a0Then I placed my ear in his mouth and poked his finger several times with my eye.\u00a0 His teeth hurt so from the strength of my ear that he became irate and tried to kick me.\u00a0 But I cleverly blocked the onslaught with my ribs and face.\u00a0 I scrambled to my feet and ran to my car in the hopes that I could get away and save this man from my deadly hands.\u00a0 Before I could start the car, he pulled me from the still open door.\u00a0 I then proceeded to swing at him, but only managed to hit myself in the head.\u00a0 To this I said, \u201cWhat is this, two against one?\u201d\u00a0 That was the final straw- I lost all control. There will be no mercy!!!\u00a0 Taking him in my death grip, I pounded him in the knee with my stomach.\u00a0 Then I hit him two or three times in the fist with my teeth. \u00a0He had had it. I could tell.\u00a0 After that he didn\u2019t even try to pick me up off the ground.\u00a0 He was too chicken!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I love that little story because\u00a0it is the perfect illustration that perspective is everything. Our perspective\u00a0is\u00a0our point of view &#8211; it is how we choose to look at the world around us.\u00a0\u00a0 It can be shaped by the influences we have around us but it is determined by our ability to decide how\u00a0we will choose to\u00a0view things.<\/p>\n<p>How we CHOOSE to PERCIEVE our experiences in life will determine how much power and happiness we\u00a0can create and feel every day.\u00a0 If we choose to perceive life as a victim or a martyr we will feel powerless and sad.\u00a0 On the other hand, if we choose to perceive life as our being in charge of how we look at things, then we will feel powerful and free to\u00a0create\u00a0anything we want in our life.\u00a0\u00a0We absolutely have\u00a0100% control of how we will\u00a0perceive our life \u2013 it\u00a0is totally our choice.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure each one of us has something in our lives that is bringing us down, so why not test this theory that we have the power to choose how we will perceive the situation?\u00a0 First, step back and think about a different way\u00a0you could view this situation that is causing\u00a0you to feel down.\u00a0 Second, try to see if there is any other angle\u00a0you could look at the situation from that would shed a positive light on it, such as, considering a potentially good outcome that might result from it, or recognizing the way it might build your character up for having endured whatever the trial is, or realizing that there is someone who you may someday be able to help because you have gone through this tough time.\u00a0 Really try to see if there is any other angle you could CHOOSE to PERCIEVE the situation that is causing you angst.\u00a0 Then when you find that one glimmer of a positive view really focus on how it makes you feel to consider it\u2026by doing that you will find that when you let your mind go there you suddenly feel HOPE or GRATITUDE or RELIEF\u2026you feel GOOD again!\u00a0\u00a0 It truly works.\u00a0 I promise.\u00a0 I know it sounds too simple or too childish, but the fact is\u00a0that it really does work\u2026our perception is our choice!<\/p>\n<p>Choose to perceive things in a positive way \u2013 create and control your own happiness in life &#8211; BECAUSE YOU CAN!!!<\/p>\n<p>~Amy<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This statement is something all of us should really stop and think long and hard about\u2026Our perception is our choice\u2026There are many things in our life that ARE NOT our choice, for example &#8211; how the weather will be, or whether a person will fall in love with us or not, or whether we will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[248,168,501,500,46,251,6225,8002,63,155,8003,504,1086,224,1195,515,163,157,96,1620,4915,8010,5040,41,83,51,641,1232,1804,743,5918,55,144,103,4539,8004,5935,464,296,64,1109,35,8008,8011,8001,1482,2253,8005,3423,153,2196,8009,1668,27,112,8012,7566,272,1437,6925,8007,1580,8006],"class_list":["post-6137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ability","tag-adversity","tag-appreciate","tag-appreciation","tag-attitude","tag-balance","tag-betray","tag-big-guy","tag-blessings","tag-character","tag-chicken","tag-choice","tag-choose","tag-confidence","tag-consequence","tag-control","tag-courage","tag-create","tag-culture","tag-death","tag-determined","tag-dragging-us-down","tag-dying","tag-entrepreneur","tag-experience","tag-family","tag-feelings","tag-fight","tag-forget","tag-forgive","tag-free","tag-happiness","tag-help","tag-hurt","tag-hurt-feelings","tag-illustration","tag-influences","tag-joy","tag-lesson","tag-life","tag-loss","tag-love","tag-martyr","tag-other-angle","tag-our-perception-is-our-choice-perception","tag-outcome","tag-perceive","tag-perspective-is-everything","tag-point-of-view","tag-positive","tag-powerful","tag-powerless","tag-sad","tag-self-confidence","tag-self-improvement","tag-shed-light","tag-step-back","tag-story","tag-strong","tag-theory","tag-view-things","tag-weather","tag-world-around-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6138,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6137\/revisions\/6138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}