Recipe for a Perfect Day
I had a perfect day not long ago. It wasn’t that everything in my day went without a hitch. It wasn’t some lucky confluence of circumstances. It didn’t have to do with something I did. The perfect day I enjoyed was due more to something I didn’t do.
How can not doing something give the experience of a perfect day? The answer is simpler than you may think. When I drove away from my house that morning, I noticed I had a judgment about nearly everything I saw. I also noticed that I didn’t like the feeling those judgmental thoughts created.
So I made a deal with myself. I flipped the “off” switch on my inner judge. My busy mind started to slow down almost immediately, and just a few minutes later, I noticed I was in a completely different place; one where everything was already OK.
It’s a short recipe, isn’t it? If you were expecting that something as rare as a perfect day would require a longer recipe, it’s a reminder of the power of simple answers.
There wasn’t any more to do because there was nothing wrong with the day, to begin with. All I needed to do was to see the day clearly, and the only way to do that was to see it through different eyes, neutral eyes.
I find it incredibly helpful to know which set of eyes I’m using to see the world. The eyes of judgment only let me see one thing in many iterations; imperfection. When I judge something, all I can see is my own judgment. Whatever it is I’m looking at has become veiled, replaced by whatever judgment I’ve made. I might as well be trying to look at something in a funhouse mirror.
Years ago, I was diligent about keeping the windshield of my car absolutely clear of smashed bugs, bird poo, and anything else that happened to land on it. I’d feel almost offended if I saw something splat onto the clean windshield. It was a lot of constant work.
One day, I happened to see the “problem” of smashed bugs and bird poo through new eyes. It occurred to me that if there were bugs and crap on the windshield, all I had to do was look beyond them. In other words, all I had to do was to lengthen my focus and look at the road, which is where my attention belonged in the first place.
One simple, tiny shift in focus and the “problem” disappeared. I laugh sometimes when I notice how dirty my windshield is because now I know that all I have to do is to focus beyond the bugs and onto the road ahead.
If you find yourself doing a lot of judging as you go through your day, notice how it makes you feel. That tight, irritating, constricted feeling isn’t coming from the world. It’s coming from your judgment of the world you see.
Set aside the judgment, and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a perfect day.
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