I left the house very early today to drive my son to basketball practice. It had been raining most of the night and the fog had engulfed the town like an angry shadow. As I drove, I thought about how uncomfortable the fog made me feel. I wanted to turn around and go back to the house. I could barely see a few feet in front of the car. It reminded me of how uncomfortable I feel in the center of negativity. You try and shine your own light on the crowd but the negativity winds around getting closer and closer swallowing you up until you choke on the taste of what negativity becomes. How do people get that way? Once fun and full of love and life and hope only to eventually turn into a walking cloud of despair. It’s so hard to watch. Sometimes I just want to shake people and turn them upside down, stand them on their head so they can maybe try and see a different perspective. Negativity is a fog that forms over the window of the soul. If you don’t clean it off, it will become the only view you will ever see. The real hard fact is that I cannot change a single person around me. People have to want to change. They have to try, as hard as it seems to see the good in people and the life that they are blessed enough to adventure through. I get people get depressed. I get that bad things happen. I get that sometimes it seems like everyone around them sucks but isn’t there something, even one thing to focus on to be grateful for? Sometimes the way we feel taints what our eyes allow us to see and what our hearts allow us to feel. My question is who wants to feel that awful? At some point you have to stop pointing a finger at everyone else and take responsibility for how you feel. Do what sets your heart free. Stop complaining. Stop speaking nothing but angry, negative words and find something to focus on that makes you feel good. That fog will block your vision until it brings you to a complete standstill and you crash and burn.
It’s been said that there are no coincidences. That everyone in your life is there to teach you more about yourself. They are not there to torture you or continue to make your life difficult. They are there forcing you to learn and encouraging you to grow. I see so many fight it and just become miserable and start to resent, hate, and blame everyone around them for the life they have. We are meant to be happy. We are meant to overcome the obstacles and find the real person we were meant to be. Happiness is not created or destroyed by anyone else. It exists in each and every one of us. It is a choice. It is choosing loving thoughts and practicing loving actions regardless of the response we get from others. When we love the way we should and we treat everyone around us with respect rather than being the judge and jury of whether they deserve our respect, there is a shift that occurs and the results are indiscribable. When you are the best version of yourself and you are continually striving to do more and be more, you no longer notice every little flaw in the people around you. You choose to see good. You choose to acknowledge that we as people are imperfect and do not have the right to judge anyone but ourselves. And eventually, we do judge ourselves more gently and the more we learn to forgive and love ourselves, the easier it becomes to love, forgive and accept others.
Just for a moment, if I could have one wish granted, I would wish that for one whole day everyone could feel their heartbeat in their chest. I wish they could feel complete joy and love and childlike happiness like opening the very best gift on Christmas Day. Just for a moment, I wish everyone could feel less lonely, less horrible and feel so much love that their heart feels like it’s about to explode. If only. Just for a moment.
anewperspectiveperhaps 