Not bad, but not excellent

My 8-year-old daughter has enthusiastically latched onto the phrase, "in other words" recently. Most conversations between us these days are sprinkled with her new-found expression, usually in the form of a question; she wants to to check her understanding of something I've just read to her in a bedtime story, for instance. Or sometimes, she uses the phrase to cut to the chase and clarify that when her request to buy a new trinket is met by my diatribe about other recent trinkets, the frequency of trinket request, the cost of said trinket, and the overcrowded and cluttered nature of her room, that what I'm essentially saying is, "No."

This morning, though, she used the phrase as an opening to a sentence that would change how I looked at my day. We had just climbed into the car for our weekday morning trek to the bus stop for summer camp, and I was admittedly frazzled. It had been a morning of unusually plentiful frustrations and delays (disappearing permission slip, dropped breakfast bowl, morning phone call interruption, to name just a few), and now I was worried that I would not get her to her bus in time, and therefore, not get me to my work on time. So when she asked from her booster seat in back, "Mom, how are we doing this morning?", I gritted my teeth and said, "Well, we'll probably be late."

After a few moments, she piped up again from the back. "So... in other words, not bad, but not excellent."

It probably wasn't an intentional pearl of wisdom. Most likely, she could tell how stressed I was and was trying to placate me.

Yet, her words took root in me. True, it had been a morning of small frustrations. Yes, missing her camp bus would set off a series of unwanted consequences. But she was heading to a camp she loves, excited to be on the Yellow team for Field Day. And I was headed for a day of work that I find interesting and compelling, with potential opportunity to help people, which has always been rewarding for me.

So much of life, situationally and in segments of time, is the juxtaposition of good things and bad things. So much of how I feel at any given time depends on which things I magnify or throw a spotlight upon.

In other words, my happiness today is determined in no small part by the attitiude I approach it with.