Perspectives

Once, a very long time ago, when I was in the restaurant business, I had a mentor. His name was George Triplehorn. He was the general manager of The Proud Bird Restaurant on runway 25R at LAX. It was a beautiful place, built in 1967. At the time it was the largest restaurant in all of Los Angeles. It had a huge Grand Ballroom with 12 brilliant crystal chandeliers hanging from an ornate ceiling above an enormous expanse of red carpet. The room could accommodate as many as 1200 guests. There was a smaller ballroom that seated 800 and several, more intimate rooms for parties of 100 or less. The entryway had a Koi pond and with waterfalls and a wooden bridge that lead to the massive wooden front doors. There were gas lit torches lighting every corner.

George taught me how to be a gracious hostess. He taught me how to read people and how to look for and solve problems before they became apparent to any guests. From the moment I stepped out of my car in the back parking lot I began to look for what was wrong. Was there any trash in the parking lot? Were any lights out? Were the fish fed and were the fountains working? Were all the gas lights turned on and was the rock fireplace in the lobby burning? Was there ample toilet paper and were the restrooms cleaned the night before? I trained my eyes to look for what was wrong. I became the problem solver. I became the person to look for missing name tags and wrinkles in the waiter's shirts. I looked for scuff marks on their shoes and fingernails untrimmed. I had a room behind the front desk where I kept a sewing kit for missing buttons and black shoe polish for the shoes that were more brown than black. I checked each and every menu for dirt, spills or tears. Every plant was inspected for dust or brown spots that needed trimming. I was a machine. Nothing passed my scrutiny. Every detail of every aspect of the operation was examined constantly. I never let up. The place was immaculate when I was on duty.

The problem with that kind of training was that I was unable to relax in any restaurant. I would go out to dinner with friends and family and most of the time I was looking for what was wrong. What needed to be fixed or refined? The service? Did our server act friendly? Did they make eye contact? Did they serve from the left or from the right? Was the table clean? Was the silver polished? Was the music too loud or was the hostess too slow? It wasn't a pleasant experience for me or for anyone near me.

It also carried over into my private life. I scrutinized every facial expression. What did he mean by that? I was reading energies before I knew that I was doing it. I had to read the needs and wants and expectation of others to create an experience that would be pleasing. Holy crap! Pretty soon everything looked like a problem that needed to be solved and solved by the problem solver, me. I drove myself nuts. Because, as I know now, "What we put our attention on we create more of." I needed problems to solve so I created more problems to solve. What a nightmare I was living!

My focused attention was on problems of every kind. World problems, human problems, social problems, political problems! It's not a wonder I found myself overwhelmed with depression. By the time I was 27 I was burned out.

It was divine guidance that led me to the teachers, healers and masters who taught me how to shift my perspective to begin looking for what is the positive evidence around me. Now, instead of focusing my attention on what is lacking, I look for what is abundant.

My friend, Anthony had such an experience recently. His perspective and opinion of the younger generation was skewed by the media and their hot pursuit of the private lives of people like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica 'whatever' and "Girls Gone Wild". He saw and heard about gang violence and kids who murder and vandalize. He believed our educational system was turning out ignorant, lazy, apathetic and spoiled individuals. He looked for them everywhere and saw them everywhere he looked...until.....

He went to spend a week with his cousin and his cousin's teenaged children. He dreaded the idea of what it would be like to spend so much time with three 'selfish, spoiled, self involved, and ignorant' teenagers. He was resistant and had an escape plan in place if needed. But, much to his surprise, these teenagers were smart, well-behaved, grounded, ambitious, eager, connected, evolved young beings. Anthony was blown away. He enjoyed having intelligent conversations with them and he relished in their innocent humor. Steven's perspective shifted. When he returned home he stopped looking for the teenagers with gang offiliations and over-sized egos and began seeing young people in his neighorhood spending their Saturdays cleaning up their campus. Some even began showing up for his spiritual classes. He began finding them in restaurants and in the dog park. He began finding articles about the young teenager who invented a project for school that ended up solving a production problem that wasted too much water.

When we shift our perspective we change our view. I began looking for what was and is the positive evidence in my life, in my neighborhood and in my world. It's a practice I must continually employ. I'm not always good at it but, man-o-man, when I turn on that positive view finder, my life feels grand.

So, I ask you to try on these questions. "What's good about my life?" "What's good about my job?" "What's good about my situation?" "What is good about me?"

What is positive in your life right now? Look for it, feel it, and expand that feeling. The daily practice of shifting your view point will heal your life in ways you cannot imagine.