BE THANKFUL

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire. If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something,
for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations,
because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge,
because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes.
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary,
because it means you've made a difference.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks.

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they can become your blessings.

- Unknown

Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Psalm 106:1

Are You For or Against?

It seems that we live in a world, today, of division.  Who is for this __________?  (You fill in the blank with an issue, a product, an idea, or even a thought).  Who is against this_______________?  We were all created with a mind of our own, much to the chagrin of our parents and grandparents.  We learned very early in our lives that we could use that mind to determine our own path, our own ideas.  We didn't have to think the same as our brother or sister.  We didn't even have to think the same as our friends, although it could make for some interesting conversations when you shared those differing opinions.

Here is my question...is it better to be for something or against something?  I've been doing some thinking about this lately because it seems we have become a culture of anti.  We've got anti-drug campaigns, anti-smoking campaigns, anti-war campaigns.  You name it, there's probably a group of anti-something toward it somewhere.  I'm not saying being anti is a bad thing.  I'm certainly anti anything that is harmful to ourselves or our world.  But therein lies the problem.  What I think is harmful, someone else may believe is helpful.  And then we're back to those pro versus con issues again.

Mother Teresa was asked one time if she would join an anti-war rally.  This was her reply:  "I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there."  I'd never thought about that before.  Maybe it's all in how or what you focus on. 

We can choose to be against something, or we can choose to be for something else.  Mother Teresa wasn't against war, she was for peace.  There will be those that claim this is the same thing, but I think I would have to disagree.  Being against anything is a feeling of negativity.  To be negative is the opposite of being positive.  Mother Teresa was saying she chose to attack things from the positive end of the spectrum instead of the negative.  This thinking required a great deal of contemplation on my part. 

I had always been...anti-drugs, anti-smoking, anti-war.  But where have all of the anti-anythings gotten us?  In all of the years since the anti-campaigns began, have we made much progress?  We have a lot more campaigns against a lot more things, but do they work?

I wonder if we took a different approach, an approach that may be less publicized but may be more effective, if we would begin to see the changes we've all been 'fighting' for, for so long.  What would happen if we started being for things instead of against other things?  Instead of being anti-war, we followed Mother Teresa's advice and became for peace.  Instead of being anti-drugs, we became for sobriety.  Instead of being anti-smoking, we changed our focus to being for clean air.

Would it make a difference?  Some will see this shift as pointless.  It would appear, on the surface, that we are all aiming for the same goal, but I would question that.  You see, when you fight against anything, you are sending negative emotions and feelings to that goal.  These negative emotions produce all kinds of bad things because when you focus on the negative, your body takes those signals and channels those into all of your energies.  You become what you focus on, so if you're focusing on opposition and fighting, you'll get more opposition and fighting.  Even if you're fighting for something, it's still fighting.  It's still war.

If you focus on the positive, being for something, then you'll get more positives in return.  You're no longer fighting and moving in a negative direction, you're moving in a positive direction and more positives will return to you. 

I used to try to teach this concept to my preschool teachers.  They would come to me complaining about a particular child and how 'naughty' that child was.  My first question was always, "And what have you done?"  (I learned this idea from my parents.  It was always their first question to me when I had a problem).  The teacher's response was almost always, "Well, I've put them in time out, I've sent notes home to the parents, I've talked to the child over and over again.  I just don't know what else to do." 

My next question always surprised the newer staff people.  I would ask, "Have you told them what they're doing right, or well?"  The teacher would inevitably look at me as if I had two heads and say something to the effect of, "No, I don't think you understand me.  This child is a problem.  There aren't any good things to talk to them about."   My response was, "Really, NOTHING?  Do they cry when they come to school, or are they happy to come?  Do they help other children at any time?  Do they walk, instead of run, through the room?  Do they smile when you talk to them?  Isn't there something that they do that you enjoy about them?  No matter how small or seemingly insignificant, there must be something."  And as we examined it more closely, we would inevitably find at least one or two things that were good.  Many times the teacher was surprised by all the good things we could find.

My assignment to the teacher was to try something different; try to point out the good things, however few and far between they were, to the child.  Some days it would be difficult to find something, but they should do it.  Find something, any little thing, that was positive and celebrate it with that child.  Once the teacher made that shift, from the negative to the positive, change would begin to show in that child's behavior.  And there would be more positive behavior.  By the next visit with the teacher, in almost all of the cases, they would have good reports.

It's a small shift in our thinking.  Well, OK, maybe it's not so small.  For some of us, to shift away from being against the bad to being for the good, is a quantum leap but it has huge benefits.  Mother Teresa was never for war, but she understood that fighting against it would only produce more of what she didn't want.  Fighting just produces more fighting.  We've seen evidence of that over the past forty or fifty years.  Maybe it's time to try a new approach.  Maybe we need to start deciding what we're for!

"It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving."

 

Optimist, Pessimist, or Realist?

Are you one of those people that sees the cup half full or do you see it as half empty?  I love to ask people this question and watch as they think about it (or don't) before they answer.  It's also interesting to watch their family and friends while they're answering.  It always amuses me to see the disbelief and sometimes shock on their faces as their friend or family member swears that, of course, they are 'half full' people.  Sometimes they remain silent and accept the answer.  Other times they jump in and correct the person with their view on the subject.

Most people see themselves as 'half full' people.  It's easy to understand why.  We all want to be positive.  We want to see the good in life and in people, but it's not easy.  Day after day life smacks us around and it becomes more and more difficult to find the good and not to focus on the bad.  There is someone close to me who claims that she's not pessimistic, she is realistic.  In almost every situation, she will point out the negative aspects.  Very few times have I ever heard her point out the good in anything. 

 A pessimist is a person who habitually sees or anticipates the worst or is disposed to be gloomy. We all know people who live life this way.  No matter what the situation the absolute worst will happen to them.  So then, what is a realist?  A realist then is a person who tends to view or represent things as they really are.  Hmmm...sees things as they really are.  That's pretty subjective, isn't it?  We all see things through our own paradigm or viewfinder.  Based on our life's experiences we each see things through our unique filter.  So what may be 'real' to me, may not be 'real' to you.  I just know that when most anything happens to this person, she will embrace the worst case scenario.  Very few times is she disappointed. 

Well, then, what is an optimist?  An optimist is a person who has the  tendency to expect the best and see the best in all things.  Is it possible to be an optimist all the time?  I suspect that you would find very few people who could  be positive 100% of the time.  We each have situations or circumstances that cause us to, at least temporarily, see things as less than good.  Such is life.  I'd like to think that I'm an optimistic person and I have verified that with some of my friends and family.  I'd also like to think that I'm that way because I have faith, in God, in myself, in life in general.  That makes it much easier to be optimistic, even when there is very little to be positive about.  It gives me an 'anchor' to hold on to when I find myself siding into pessimism.  Of course, there are still those times when I allow myself to hold a personal "pitty party," but I set a time limit on those parties and never allow myself to 'live' there very long. 

There is an attraction to living in the world of pessimism.  Sometimes people feel sorry for you.  It can get you attention that you might not otherwise have.  We all know that people like attention.  This is easy to observe in children.  Children will force you to pay attention to them.  If they can get it in good ways, doing good things, then they will.  But if they can't get your attention in positive ways, they will get them in negative ways.  As long as it gets you to look at them and pay attention, they don't care how it happens.  Adults can be the same way, so we have to be careful about allowing ourselves to live in the land of pessimism.  Remember, what you focus on you get more of.  It really is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

As for me, I will continue to choose to find the positive in life.  After all, this is the one and only life I'm going to have.  I choose to find the good in each day and thank God for it.  I'll admit, sometimes I have to look hard, but it's always there.  Maybe I just don't recognize it as positive when it happens, but it's there.  You know, I find that once I find a 'good' then it becomes easier to find another and then another. 

What will you choose this day?  I hope you find all wonderful things.  I hope that life blesses you and yours!  I hope that you find joy in this day!  It's your choice, after all.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

In one of my previous lives, I served as the director of a family resource center.  At one point, with lots of changes taking place, I noticed that the staff were all becoming 'down in the mouth.'  Moral was pretty low and we needed to make a change, so in an effort to reverse the thinking taking place I reached to my bookshelves and came across a book by Richard Carlson, Ph.D. called, Easier Than You Think.  I had bought this book several years before at a conference in Louisville, Kentucky.  The book had been sitting on my shelf alongside another of his books, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.  As I picked up the book and began to read it, I decided this was the perfect little book to use at our staff development meetings.  The chapters were very short but packed full of quality life lessons, and I'm all about life lessons.

A friend and I were talking about this book just last night and the value of its simple message:  life really is easier than you think.  It's what we do with our lives (or don't do with them) that makes them so complicated and difficult.  Dr. Carlson shows us in a few pages easy ways to make small changes that will have a big impact on the quality of your life.

The first lesson is one that I have taught a lot over the course of my years.  He calls it 'A Penny for Your Thoughts.'  It became a key phrase for those of us at the center.  When one of us heard another thinking and saying negative things, we would simply say, "A penny for your thoughts."  This was just a little reminder that we have a choice of how we look at things. 

Our thoughts are the most powerful tools we have been given in this lifetime.  We can use them ... to create joy, anticipation, excitement, fun, happiness, and peace.

Of course, we can just as easily allow our thoughts to be self-destructive weapons.  We can wake up in the morning with a list of complaints as long as the front page of the newspaper.  And whichever road we take--positive or negative--our choice is likely to have little if anything to do with how "good" our life really is on the "outside."

If you can keep in mind the reality that you control your own thoughts and nothing else, you will be in pretty good shape.  Whenever negativity creeps into your mind (which it will do on a regular basis), remember two things:  You are the one who is creating the negativity with your own thinking.  But more important, you have the power to stop it.

After all, everything that happens in your life is processed in your head.  Your brain, your thoughts, tell you how to feel about it.  It really is a choice.  We all have over 60,000 thoughts each day, most of them the very same thoughts we had yesterday.  We can choose to "switch the channel" and not listen to the negative ones as they come up.  Take a little time today to stop and notice what you're thinking.  Is it helpful to you in any way?  Or does it just beat you up and leave you feeling bad?  Change that channel!  You don't have to listen to it.

Certainly there are times when we need to run a diagnostic evaluation of ourselves.  Are we on target for our goals?  Are we living the life we want to live?  But when the evaluation becomes an opportunity for us to  bloody our own lip and leave us feeling badly about ourselves, then we need to notice the negative self-talk and turn it off.  A simple statement to yourself such as, "I appreciate that these thoughts may have served some purpose for me in the past, but they just don't work for me anymore.  I choose to see this in a different light," flips the switch.  After you've flipped that switch several times, you can simply think or say, "No thanks!" and move on.  

Life is just too short to live it in a world of negativity.  We all  face trials but if we can find some good in each day, in each lesson, then our days will be filled with gladness and thanksgiving rather than despair and grief.  So, today I ask you...A Penny for Your Thoughts?