JURY DUTY: PERCEPTION AND CHOICE

Greetings, I am so amazed at how learning situations come about for me when I am open to receive them.

Today I was at jury duty and something interesting happened. At beginning of the day we were put through an orientation so we could have an idea of what the process would entail. During that phase the senior superior court judge came to welcome  us. The bulk of his welcome was that they understand how much of imposition this is, and how grateful they are that we take the time to do this and without us the justice system would not work. Very positive and very much of a gratitude based type of message. At the end of the message I felt very good about being there.  I felt appreciated, I felt positive, I felt like I was making a difference.

The lady next to me however, had a completely different reaction to the same message. Right out of the bat as soon as the judge finished thanking us, her impression was “oh my God I hate doing this, and I hate being here. I feel like I am trapped”.  When I asked what she did for a living she said “nothing, I am retired and do nothing. I just golf”. Needless to say I was amazed at how we both hearing the same message had a completely opposite reaction to it. I felt positive emotions, and gratitude and significance, while she felt trapped, frustration, hate, and misery.  So that highlighted the  lesson that at any moment  I HAVE A CHOICE ABOUT HOW I REACT TO SOMETHING that is happening to me even if I have no control over it.

I wanted to share this example with you so that you can see that if you are aware of The Law of Attraction, and you are aware that your emotions are warning signs as well as an indicator of what is to come, you can actually filter these situations to your benefit. When you realize that you are heading down the negative emotional side you can correct it immediately. As you know it is allot easier to correct something that is in the process of manifesting than something that has already happened, and has become your reality. It is very difficult to change things that we have perceived in our reality and they are right in our face sort to say. So use your emotions and remember that you always have a choice about how you feel;  about circumstances that are happening to you and by making the choice to reach for that positive feeling, even if it is a little bit at a time, you are going to set yourself up for a more rewarding and positive circumstance. It is those little positive circumstances that will lead to success.

The interesting thing in this whole experience was that when we were actually selected to go into a big case for jury selection despite all the negativity, I had heard the day before,  I was so impressed at the fact that how accommodating the people are when actually sitting in the court room and being asked to serve by an authority figure. Even though they were given ample opportunity to get excused they actually did admit that they can juggle schedules, go in after business hours to make up work they would be missing, even willing to serve when their employer would not pay for the entire length of their service.

It seems when the people are given a purpose and an opportunity to make a difference, or are asked to help, their attitude changes from negative to positive and people are willing to put aside the discomforts and inconveniences to actually make an impact.  That was a new point of view for me which in hind sight makes  perfect sense.

So the bigger lesson is that we need to realize that the fact that we use our emotional warning signals to chance our attitudes is THE BIGGEST AND MOST IMPORTANT SERVICE we can perform for ourselves and our society. There is no bigger impact that we can make than becoming successful and part of that is being able to control our reactions to things that happen where we feel like we have no control. We do and my experience has showed me that even the most negative person can change their reaction in an instant given enough motivation. In this case, the simple fact that they are making a difference.

I hope you enjoyed this post and please as always feel free to share it with anyone who may benefit from it.