I was reminded the other day (and likely every day), of how much the perspectives that WE bring to every situation affect us, and our ability to manage / accept situations, people, etc....

It reminded me of a great story from John Gray - author of the Mars & Venus books.... One of his self-help tapes was on the matter of perspectives, and he was speaking to a live audience... He asked for a show of hands, asking how many people had stepped off a curb, and almost been hit by a car.....  Of course, many in the audience had shared this experience.....  He went onto say that before he learned about perspectives, events like this would literally ruin his day..... he would shake his fist (or finger) at the offending driver.... then go into work and relive the incident with his co-workers - getting himself all upset again in the process.... he then repeated this again when he called his wife, and told her about the incident......  then when he had a group over for dinner that evening, the story got repeated yet again.... In his words, this incident literally "ruined his entire day".  With his renewed perspective, he claims to now be able to accept such situations in a totally different light - so if the same thing were to happen today, he'd be able to step back and say to himself "hey John, pretty good reflexes for an old guy!".  With this, he'd walk away from the incident, it would NOT ruin his day, and his outlook towards himself and others was unscathed....

I think Al-Anon, and our associated recovery, is a LOT about perspectives....  Nope, we can't control other people, but we CAN control a lot of what we bring to the table....  Like John's analogy, we sometimes have to "step out of the way of moving vehicles", but I think we need to remember that we DO have that ability, in most situations.... 

Alcoholism/addiction tends to cloud this over for most of us, and the tools we learn here, and elsewhere, help us get ourselves better.....

Take care,
Tom