How the words, “Right Now” changed my perspective

It is not always easy to be positive, to see the best in a situation or even in a person. Sometimes I just don’t want to put on a happy face or give a person grace. This can be especially true when I am feeling fatigued, overly tired or waiting for test results.

Some time ago I experienced one of these not-so-positive moments where life and my struggles just seemed more than I could or wanted to handle. I was listening to my favorite radio station when the DJ came on and talked about having an unusually difficult day. She said that she had found that adding the words, “Right now” to the end of her sentences when she is challenged with negativity was helpful in shifting her mood.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said to myself in a grumpy huff as I was stuck behind a less than capable driver. I was having one of those days. I was late getting up for work, my Keurig decided to only give me half the desired amount of coffee I was looking for, it was raining, and I had a maintenance infusion coming up in a couple days that always reminded me that I was still fighting cancer.

My mood was low and my challenges felt large. But I didn’t want to be a negative Nancy so I told myself the next negative thought I had I would add the words, “Right now” to the end of it and see what happened.

“Go!” I yelled to the driver in front of me and then added under my breath, “right now.” That made me giggle. “This really is ridiculous,” I thought, but it still made me smile; it was a start.

No surprise, the driver in front of me did eventually go and I carried on with my day. As I opened the door to the office and saw the weekend’s mail in a pile and the light flashing on the phone indicating there were messages I thought, “Ugh” and then added, “right now.” Then I heard my inner voice say sarcastically, “Yah, that works.”

But I had told myself I would try this “right now” thing for the rest of the day and see if it helped shift my mood. Throughout my day I made it a point to use the two little words after nearly everything I said, the good, the bad and the ridiculous. Sometimes the words made sense and sometimes they didn’t, but what they did do was get me to start thinking about my current situation, the right now in the “Right now.” And my outlook and mood started to change from downtrodden and negative to more manageable and positive. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, “right now” was helping me right now.

My day continued with me chuckling about my “right now” experiment and before long I had forgotten about that slowpoke driver and my missing half cup of coffee. My right now had become just that, all I needed to deal with at that moment.

By adding those two little words I was more able to wrap my mind around what was really in front of me and see that it neither defined my day nor the rest of my future. Right now really was manageable.

I have begun to train myself to add those two little words throughout my day to my negative thoughts and statements and it has had a profound effect on my outlook. It did not stop me from having bad moods, change the surly clients I have to deal with nor taken away my cancer, but it did impact the way I spoke to myself and others. It helped me see a more clear perspective as to what was important. Right now helped me to understand that my situation may not be what I hoped it was but it was only that way for right now.