It’s Not A Bad Life…

We as humans tend to see the bad in life. We normally gravitate to what is bothering us. For example, on my parent’s front walk there was a butterfly bush and it was massive! The one thing it lacked was a massive amount of butterflies. However, I digress.

The leaves and flowers would cover part of the sidewalk. When I would walk by it, no matter what I did, I’d always hit it. Obviously, I never took the time or effort to do anything about it. One day, I would realize I wasn’t hitting the bush anymore! Inevitably, my mom would say she had cut back the bush a week ago.

Therefore, as soon as I hit the plant, my “negative mind” would never let me forget the bush each time I walked by it. However, my “positive mind” didn’t realize the positive thing for a week*. It always surprises me how short it takes to see something bad, but how long it takes to see the good.

You know why it always seem like there is bad things on the news? Think about it — it’s all about marketing. They give people what sells, what the majority of the users want, and that’s bad news. I know many of us don’t want it, but news companies are going to give the news that sells and have people coming back for more.

One evening, I was texting a good friend about trying to make it through each day with what I deal with. For example: I don’t sleep well when I sleep. In fact, I’m always so tired that one time I tried to sleep as much as I could, and my body slept itself out. It would wake me up at 5 am without being able to get back to sleep. My body had all the sleep it wanted, but yet I still felt (and continue to feel) exhausted each and every day. I continued my rant, not directed at my friend, but a rant nonetheless.

Towards the end of that rant, I knew it would be remiss not to mention, even through tough times, I have many, many blessings in my life. My faith, my family, and the health and independence I do have. I ended the text like this:

“I just have a lot of bad things happening in a great life.”

That hit me right between the eyes: I have a great life! It’s not a bad life. There may be a lot of things I don’t want happening, but those things aren’t the meat and potatoes of my life. Or rather, to appease my sweet tooth, that’s not the cake in my life. I had the base of a good life (the cake) and the blessing of friends, family, and independence (the heavenly frosting). Those bad things are the extras. Instead of having a cherry on top as the pièce de résistance, it’s an olive on top for me. Even though the olive might be on the cake, it doesn’t change the fact there is a good base and many blessings as well. Those are the most important.

Think about it — do you really have a bad life, or do you have a good life with issues thrown in?

Keeping the perspective,
Lauren

*I’m not a psychologist so when I refer to the “positive” or “negative” mind it’s just how I see the positive and negative things. I don’t know if there really is a positive or negative mind medically speaking.