Parking Lot Picnic

So I have a little storytime for you on this lazy Saturday, with a little bit of a “life lesson” that I feel like we don’t hear all too much. I posted some snaps on Instagram of Blake and I’s quarantine parking lot picnic and really started thinking about mindset and life (because, you know, mental health is important, and it’s one of my passions as a student pursuing school counseling).

So, as we are all well aware of at this point, everyone is under quarantine (hence the lack of adventure blogs and vlogs). Blake and I are both essential workers, we are both driving around, and I am in need of an oil change (I know, glamorous). So, this morning, B and I both wake up to be at my car oil change place at 8:00am. (Blake didn’t want me to have to just sit there forever, and obviously nothing is open so I couldn’t shop while my car was in the shop.. and yes, he’s a keeper haha). So, we get to the oil change place just to find out that they have limited their hours due to the virus, and that they are now closed on the weekends. I know. It was very frustrating, to say the least.

So, we decide to make the best of the morning, and we head to the chick-fil-a just down the street to get some breakfast and spend some quality time together before he heads to work. I snap some pics before we feast, then we spend a good hour together before he has to leave.

So, as I go to post the pictures of our little hatch-back picnic, something kinda clicked for me: although we had that kinda rough start to our morning, it was a good morning. We didn’t let the oil change issue get us down, and instead, we were able to shift our focus on each other and being in the present moment.

I know we’ve all heard the phrase, in one way or another, that Instagram life isn’t real life, and that basically Instagram doesn’t tell the whole story. We all know that’s true. But what if we all spent more time focusing on our own Instagram-worthy moments and less time worrying about the trivial “bad” moments of the days, where would our mental health look as the whole? (Disclaimer here: there are some “bad” things that you do need to focus on. You can’t just stick your head in the sand about important problems, pretending that they don’t exist.) What I am saying is that the not-so-glamorous oil change still has to get done, but instead of focusing our energy on what went wrong (about the morning, etc.), and if instead, we shift our focus to what went right in the day, would we not all be a little happier?

My challenge to you, and it’s an activity I’ve been doing since studying solution-focused methods in counseling, is to start identifying what made each day a “good day” and do more of it. I (not being the journaling type) came across an activity where you write a list of 3-5 things at the end of each day, with the list being called: “Things That Made Today A Good Day:” or my favorite, “Today’s Blessings”. I promise you (after a week of doing this) that it will really help you to find more joy and more positives in what seems to be the hum-drum of everyday life.

Thanks for reading,

I hope you’re staying healthy and safe!

Megan