One night for dinner, I attempted to show my family that not always should you put the condiment bottles on the table. A well set table actually does not, in fact, ever have the condiment bottles set on the table. Or, so my mom has taught me.
So, in an attempt to show what a proper table looks like, I squeezed the ketchup into a little glass bowl and placed it onto the table with a little spoon and yelled for everyone to come because dinner was ready. Something else my mom taught me to do!
Because nothing says fancy like chicken tenders and French fries with ketchup in a glass bowl.
I’m so fancy, y’all.
I kid you not, as each family member entered the dining area, the first thing each said was, “Where’s the ketchup?”
And I explained three separate times, that a properly set table actually does not have the bottles on the table. They should be poured into a bowl and then spooned out.
And then we all proceeded to place chicken tenders and fries on our paper plates.
Y’all…I can only do so much fancy at one time.
Isn’t it funny how everyone, not just one person, every single person came to the table looking for something they usually see in one form, but this time it looked different so they could not find it. Yet it was right under their noses.
I find this so amusing and so interesting…we humans have that knack. We can be very “interesting” and highly amusing.
How often do we look for something that has always been there…most of the time we find it. Because most of the time it is there.
But what if we decided to look for something in a new way? Will we be able to find that?
I recently heard we will always find what we are looking for because the brain wants to be always right.
So, if we are looking for ways to be offended, guess what? 99% of the time we will find ourselves offended.
If we are intentional about looking for the good in people or in situations, guess what. We will find that too…there is the good news.
Luckily, this also applies to what we are looking for within ourselves. If we are constantly telling ourselves we are procrastinators or we don’t manage our time well, guess what? We will be procrastinators and we won’t mange our time well at all.
But, if we tell ourselves we can mange the time we are given well and we are great at finding little pockets of time throughout the day to get done the things we want done, guess what? We will find those little pockets of time throughout our day and get done what we want to get done.
The brain is a powerful tool if we learn to use it to our advantage. Once we learn to train it to be on our team, we cannot lose!
What will you be intentionally looking for today to serve you better?
Kid Tip:
Have a kid who is beginning to look at school as boring or in my fourth grader’s words, “prison”? Start training their brain to look for the positives throughout the day with prompts such as these:
“Look for something funny today.”
“Look for someone to help today.”
“Look for something good that has happened to yourself or to someone around you.”
“Look for something or someone that made you smile today.”
“Look for one thing new you can tell me you learned today.”
