Horrible, Awful, Wonderful, Magical
In the movie “The Backup Plan” there’s this scene…
Now, in the movie they’re talking about what parenthood is like – and they are spot on. But the thing is, it’s not just parenthood.
LIFE is like this. Life is full of god-awful, horrible, terrible times. But it is also full of amazing, wonderful, magical times. The question for each of us is which ones do you focus on? Which do you absorb? Which do you remember?
I’ve been told (and readily admit) that I have the world’s worst memory. Seriously. Introduce me to someone, and 20 seconds later I can’t remember their name. Tell me a story and the next time you tell it to me it will probably be new to me. I’m *that* person.
This “ability” of mine comes in handy at times because even when bad things happen, I don’t really hold on to the negative feelings that go along with them. I actively work to see the bright side, or put a funny spin on it, and move on to something happier.
Why?
Why not?
Why should I spend my life wallowing in the bad, when life is full of so much good?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always easy. I have had my heart, feelings, emotions, spirit, etc crushed more times than I can count, just this week alone! There have been situations, circumstances, and events that have tried to break me, crush my spirit, leave me devastated – and they’ve almost succeeded so often.
But the key word there is almost.
I will not be deterred from living the best life I can – from laughter, love, joy. From enjoying both the small and big moments. From working to see the humor in the bad ones.
Take for example late last week…we were having flash flooding and my basement flooded. During the storm, I got trapped in a mud room because I live in an ancient house and the doorknob fell off when I closed the door. Water rushing in, no phone, nowhere to go, no way of opening the door. I was terrified and furious that my family didn’t hear me screaming for help.
Well, no, obviously I didn’t…either that or I’m taking the term “ghost writer” to a new level. But when I did get out, I was ready to rip into my family for being so focused on video games and whatnot that no one came to my rescue, especially after they admitted that at least one of them heard me call “something”, but no one came to investigate why I was calling.
But after initial anger dissipated, I began to laugh. It was a total “I Love Lucy” kind of moment, I realized in hind sight. Water almost up to my knees, door knob falls off - comedic gold! Did it suck? Oh yeah. But I survived.
Just like every other bad situation that happened in my life until now, I survived.
Every time you get knocked down, you have a choice: stay down, or get back up.
We can choose to focus on life’s hardships, or to focus on its joys.
Focus on the horrible, awful, bad things or focus on the wonderful, magical good ones.
Today I choose to focus on my favorite rainbow, unicorn, butterfly kitten – because life is colorful, magical, and phenomenal! How about you?
