Scores for 2/20:
Trangressions: 6
Days Since a Collapse: 4
Effectiveness: Advancing

Observation: Yesterday at work I was frustrated by things beyond my control. My frustration affected my entire day. Today there were the same frustrating external factors present (actually to an even greater degree than yesterday), but I guarded against becoming frustrated myself. The way I did this was to focus on one task at a time, calmly, without thinking about where I was in the overall process (if I did, it would have frustrated me). Even though things were out of control, I just did what I could and didn't worry about the rest. I guess I just tried to maintain a calm and patient attitude--and it worked. Attitude does count for a lot. Planning counts for something, pure effort counts for something, endurance contributes to effort, and attitude counts for something. The art of good attitude seems to be finding the golden mean between not caring and caring to the point where everything worries you...actually, that's not very clear...so, I believe that we should strive for excellence with everything. However, sometimes we have to settle for imperfection so that we can move on and do something else. We must accept the imperfection, yet go forward with the next task with the intention of achieving perfection. One extreme would be getting so frustrated as soon as things stop being perfect that you melt down and wait for a while to start back up, again expecting perfection. The other extreme would be approaching each task with a chill attitude, not really pushing yourself to do more than you can easily.
The idea that I'm trying to communicate sounds obvious, at least to me, as I'm writing it. But I know that it's the type of thing that doesn't help you until you've internalized it somehow, or habituated yourself to practice it. Controlling your state of mind is an activity, that takes practice, so although what I'm saying may be obvious, to put it to use is difficult (also, I find that I "forget" lessons like this, and I need life to continuously remind me of them).