Tag: zoo

CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE, CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Here at Secret2anamazinglife, we always look for simple methods that will have a great positive impact on our lives. One of these easy things to do is to change your perspective. There is so many things in our life that we do almost unconsciously. We drive the same way to work everyday. We tend to frequent the same restaurants. We even tend to see the same people for the same events. We go out to dinner with these people, we go to the ball game with this group of people. Don’t get me wrong, if it works that is a great thing. Sometimes, even when it comes to things that seem to work just fine, it is worth exploring other options. Can you imagine if at the turn of the century people said “These horses seem to be working just fine. Why would we want this automobile thing?”

Another great reason to explore different options is that often our hands are forced. A personal example for me is that I always tend to drive the same way while working at my day job. Recently, they closed the main road I used. I wasn’t sure what roads went through and which provided the smoothest streets, least traffic and best scenery. Why? Because I always drove the same way. The first day I spent a few minutes extra detouring and trying to figure out where I was going. This could have all been avoided had I bothered to try a new route every once in a while. The same is true about people. If you always go to the games with Fred and then Fred moves, then what? There is another important reason to switch this up we will get to next. How about going out to eat? Sure, you always go there for Italian, but what if that business closes or just has a day off? It is good to have options. When you need pizza, you often need pizza!

Another reason to switch things up? It can change the entire experience. One of my favorite places to go is our zoo here in Milwaukee. I have been to many different zoos, and I feel it is one of the best I have been to. The zoo is usually open from 8am to 5pm currently. On this day, they switched it up and had night time hours. Margie and I went and we were able to see things that we normally didn’t see. The animals that were usually active were a little more relaxed and those that were usually sleeping were up and about. We even saw some behaviors not often exhibited during the day. Take the elk going for a swim in the first picture or this bear which not only stood on top of its platform, but ended up climbing the tree. Same zoo that I have been to thousands of times, but I was able to see it in an entirely different light. Do you tend to order the same thing when you go to a certain restaurant? Maybe you are missing out on a dish that you would love even more? What if you went out to the ball game with your friend you usually go out for coffee with? I bet it would be an entirely different experience. Would you agree that the people we do something with often have a greater impact on us than the event we are doing with them? There are people who could almost make going to the dentist fun and then I know people that could even ruin a pizza for me.

Today’s lesson – add a little twist to your life. Change up the route you drive to work. If where you live is anything like where I do, one of the roads is bound to be under construction soon and it would make your life less stressful to have a workable back up plan. Change where you eat, what you eat and who you eat it with. It could open up new worlds for you! Experiencing things in a new way can open up worlds of knowledge and often change the way we look at the world entirely. Even a little shift can be healthy to dust of the cobwebs in our brains. I would love to hear about what things you do to gain different perspectives.

WE ARE ALL JUST ELEPHANTS

While having an inspiring and fruitful conversation with my friend Paul on how to get my first book I wrote and released last month  A Happy Life for Busy People in the hands of as many people as we can. That way we can make the world a more positive place. In the course of bouncing around ideas for promotion he told me he had planned on writing a book on how to add more happiness to your life, but for children. My first thought for a split second was that children have a natural capacity for joy. Why would they need a book? Then it occurred to me, that is exactly why they need a book. As we grow up our parents and other adults, well-meaning as they may be, often cause us to lose that inner peace and joy. They warn us about the dangers and what is wrong with the worlds. They tell us we can’t do things often to keep us from disappointment. As an adult if you say you wish to learn a foreign language perhaps and another adult tells you that you can’t you surely won’t just give up on their word. So why do we often still accept limits and beliefs we received as children well into adulthood, sometimes all the way until the end of our lives? The answer can be found at your local zoo. Have you ever seen the elephants at the zoo with just a chain around their ankle not able to escape? I have often wondered why doesn’t this big elephant just snap the chain and say “Thanks for the hay, but I am on the first plane back to Africa!” then it occurs to me an elephant can’t go on a plane and airfare doesn’t cost mere peanuts. Ok, double bad joke there, but seriously why don’t they break the chain when they easily could? The answer is in their childhood. When the elephants are young and far weaker the chain is put on. For months and years they try to break it and can’t. So when they reach adulthood and develop muscles that could easily snap the chain they accept the limit of their childhood and assume they could not. After all they spent years trying before. Is this true in your life? Do you have chains that hold you back you may have tried before and failed to break? Do you now just accept them as limits? Perhaps you have developed muscles you may not have realized that would help you shatter those limits? Not just physical muscles, but perhaps decision-making muscles, or the muscles of wisdom and experience? Take a new look at limits you have accepted about yourself. Perhaps they are not so true as we might have thought.