At the gym the other day one of the regulars and I were discussing politics. His perception was that the country was not liberal enough. My perception was the country was trending to be too liberal. The point of this is not to discuss politics but to talk about how perception sometimes affect our lives.

As recovering people our perceptions can sometimes lead us down the wrong path. Our disease may tell us that things are different from the way they really are. We may believe that we should be further ahead in life than we are. We may work alongside someone who is much younger than we are who's making more money than we do. We may perceive this as being unfair. After all, don't we have more experience than this person? Don't we have more education?

However, we might not consider that we have spent years drinking and drugging while the person beside us has been steadily – and soberly - employed. While we were frivolously hanging out in bars or drug houses our co-worker was trudging to work every day. The person beside has as earned their position with the company along with their salary. But our disease may tell us something different.

If I walk outside and the sky is overcast, I can choose to be depressed. Or, I can see in the overcast sky the rhythms of nature. I can find beauty in changing weather patterns.

I can drive to work and run into a construction zone and become angry. I can say things like "it seems like they are always working on the roads." This kind of observation can start my day off badly. It would have been just as easy for me to say something like "isn't it wonderful that our tax dollars are being spent on improving the highway?"

So how do we change our perceptions? I believe that we make the decision to look at the world in a positive way. And I think that one of the ways we become positive is to base our life upon a positive foundation of rock solid gratitude.
We might ask what we have to be grateful for? We can answer that question by looking around us. If we live in the United States we can be grateful for the security we have. We live in a country that is full of riches. Opportunities abound everywhere. Even in these so-called tough times, 90% of the people have jobs. We can drive down the street and see people who don't have homes who are pushing shopping carts.

While it may be their choice to live that way, at least we're not living that way.