A matter of perspective..

There are times when the world seems to be giving you the ol’ double bird and you feel like everything is against you. I had one of those moments this morning, but a matter of perspective and NOT flying off the handle changed things. It’s not easy, especially for someone battling health issues like depression. And today was going to be a doozy, as this was a rough morning.

Couldn’t fall asleep.

Stomach ache from eating fast food yesterday.

Stress in Real Life Family Health Issues

So, I go to the fridge, and get out a half gallon of vanilla mint milk that I use as a comfort drink to try to settle my stomach.

The smell when I open it.. yuck. I had only bought it four days ago!

Checked the date on it, “Sell by 11/23”. So I had bought week-expired milk. That’s on me too for not double checking the date, by the way.

Now, usually, I would’ve REALLY been in a foul mood.. but today, it didn’t seem so bad. Since I was up at 7:45 AM ANYWAY, I could drive five minutes to the local supermarket, get out for a few minutes, get a fresh thing of milk, and come home and relax.

When I check the milk aisle.. yeah, they’re ALL showing 11/23 dates (at least the ones I could reach, there was more in the back).

At this point, I don’t think anyone could’ve blamed me for losing my temper, yelling, and kicking up a fuss. But instead, I looked at it from a different perspective.

“Probably the reason they don’t know is no one told them that it was expired.”

So I said something to a passing associate. She was dragging a cart full of baked goods to the back of the store, I’m sure she had better things to do then to listen to some customer complaint, it wasn’t HER department (she was bakery, not dairy). But she took the step to get the Grocery Manager, who double checked all 12 they had on sale, found out that yes, they were 11/23 and 11/30 (and one 12/4), and promptly took them to be discarded. Before he left, he said “Hold on, let me check in back.. I think we just got a shipment of that in this morning.”

A couple minutes later, he came back with a couple of cartons of milk and he verified that the sell by date was 12/14. Things were looking up

I even stopped by the service desk on the way out and mentioned that I was happy with the service I got. They made sure that the store manager would hear it and that the store associates involved would know of my appreciation.

So MY horrible day could have spread if I let MY frustration boil over to others. I managed to change my perspective. In turn, they took the extra steps, and not only did I get what I want, but I took the extra step of noting their going above and beyond and hopefully making THEIR day better by getting kudos from their boss.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that happiness spreads, just like anger.  It’s a good reminder that you get what you give, I guess. (Thanks to the New Radicals for that One-Hit-Wonder thing)