My father's delightful response to thunder-and-lightning storms and big windstorms was to pour himself a drink, pull a chair up to the window, and watch all the excitement of nature's beautiful fury! My mom always told me to look for the good and beautiful in weather, because you can't do anything about it anyway, so why let it spoil your day?
My husband (a runner) responds to the wind and cold and snow and ice (which used to keep me indoors on such days) by dressing properly so he's never cold; he's taught me how to run every day and not be cold either. (I draw the line at biking below 50 degrees, however!)
Having lived in Texas for many years, I resist sameness in weather; I want different weather every day, which is what I get living in Maryland. The weather in Wisconsin, Texas, and even San Diego and Hawaii wasn't varied enough for my picky tastes, but many people love those places…. Give me four distinct seasons! Even the kinds of snowy, windy, rainy, warm, cloudy…days in Maryland are each different.
People who don't like to sweat, or who don't sweat often, usually have a hard time with warm temperatures, whether inside or out. A good cure for broadening one's comfort range in temperatures is to exercise/sweat often; sweating gets your cooling system working more effectively.
I see rain as pennies from heaven…..
I'm slowly learning to accept that people's reactions to weather are learned pretty early, and are hard to change, like deep-seated childhood fears, and try to remember that many people are ill, and “bad” weather makes their life that much more burdensome. My goal is to reprogram myself to enjoy all weather and temperatures as much as possible….
I hope this comic strip reinforces how important perspective is. We can see the good or the bad–because our minds will put whichever one we tell them to, “out there.” That different people enjoy and dislike so many different things about weather is proof of the importance of attitude…. Weather is one of those “what is” things we can't control, so it seems a waste of time and energy to expend negative energy on it. Good and bad weather is much more about how we are than about what the weather is…. I hope everyone enjoys today's beautiful snow!
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