Blooming, unscathed
I recently went through a time when it felt like the world was against me. There seemed to be obstacles at every corner. And a few wrong turns in general. It got to the point where conflicts at work, home and within myself were distracting me from the same.
So I set out to find the cause. I pointed my finger over there. Complained a little over here. Had a couple beers. And waxed poetic against the great injustices in my life – including the people I felt were orchestrating them.
Then I spent some time reviewing a mental filmstrip of recent occurrences . . . When did I break that mirror? How could a black cat cross my path without me noticing it? And why on earth (so to speak) does mercury always seem to be in retrograde?
Then it hit me. If it wasn’t the universe throwing my life off orbit, maybe it was me. This realization didn’t happen over night or come to me in a dream. It came from a series of conversations with myself and others. And it caused me to both pause and take action.
I remembered the retreat I went on last spring and how that week at Solitude Ridge had impacted me. While I was out there, I passed the time by writing, listening to music, listening to the silence and doing a lot of hiking. I cooked nutritious food and took lots of naps. I reconciled a few things and made peace with the things I couldn’t. It was all very “Closer to Fine” of me.
One of the most important things I realized during that retreat was exactly how much I don’t have control over. For example, one night there was a terrible thunderstorm, which saturated the ground and even damaged a few small trees. But the next morning, wild flowers were blooming, unscathed.
What? Who says that? Who disagrees with one of the most romantic sentiments ever invented? Hasn’t she seen “Serendipity”,“You’ve Got Mail” or “Lady and the Tramp”? But then she explained . . . If we trust everything to fate, we’re surrendering one of our most important human traits – free will. Yes, things happen to us. And sometimes they’re horrible. And no, I can’t explain them. But maybe that’s why it’s so important for us to exercise control over the things we actually can impact.
There’s a book out there called Change the Way You See Everything. It’s a pretty short read with long-term advice about how focusing on what’s right goes a lot further than focusing on what’s wrong. This book, which was a gift from my boss, begins with this anonymous quote: “When you change the way you see things, the things you see change.” Ok, yeah, whatever, Michelle . . . What are you going to do next week, write a post about The Secret and the Law of Attraction?
The answer is quite possibly, yes. And it’s because I buy into the power of positivity. I may sometimes forget to practice it (as described in my second paragraph above) but it certainly explains some of the differences between really successful people and the rest of the population. And by successful, I don’t just mean professionally; I mean wholly.
There’s a high school acquaintance of mine on Facebook whose status updates are almost always negative. And I bet you know people like that too. I wonder, if she approached work differently, would she get that promotion she’s sure she deserves? Or maybe she’d have the confidence to learn a new trade that won’t leave her so crabby well after she’s home for the night.
There are so many cliches I could use here: You only live once. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do with it. Attitude is everything. Carpe diem. And what’s interesting is all of those phrases, ultimately, put the responsibility on us, not the people we’re so inclined to point our fingers at. In other words, life is short. . . so live it.
