How We See The World

When I am happy, I see the happiness in others. When I am compassionate, I see the compassion in other people. When I am full of energy and hope, I see opportunites all around me.
But when I am angry, I see other people as unnecessarily testy. When I am depressed, I notice that people's eyes look sad. When I am weary, I see the world as boring and unattractive.
Who I am is what I see!
If I drive into Phoenix and complain, "What a crowded, smog-ridden mess this place is!" I am really expressing what a crowded, smog-ridden mess I am at that moment. If I had been feeling motivated that day, and full of hope and happiness, I could just as easily have said, while driving into Phoenix, "Wow, what a thriving, energetic, metropolis this is!" Again, I would have been describing my inner landscape, not Phoenix's.
Our self-motivation suffers most from how we choose to see the circumstances in our lives. That's because we don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
In every circumstance, we can look for gold, or look for the filth. And what we look for, we find. The best starting point for motivation is in what we choose to look for in what we see around us. Do we see the opportunity everywhere?
"When I open my eyes in the morning," said Colin Wilson, "I am not confronted by the world, but by a million possible worlds."
It is always our choice. Which world do we want to see today? Opportunity is life's gold. It's all you need to be happy. It's the fertile field in which you grow as a person. And opportunities are like those subatomic quantum particles that come into existence only when they are seen by an observer. Your opportunities will multiply when you choose to see them.

- Steve Chandler (100 Ways To Motivate Yourself)