Look for the Good
Sweet P woke up this a.m. cycling through the same drama from last night: Stress over a lost paper, a disagreement with a friend, a “Daddy-doesn’t-even-understand” (he did, he just didn’t care after 15 minutes of solid whining), and, “Now,” Sweet P says, “I even have insomnia.”
After testing her (because I’m that kind of mom) to see if she knew the meaning of the word (she did because she is that kind of kid), she reiterated that the world is ALSO a horrible place because I won’t let her wear flip-flops to school.
And I got to thinking about how we all do this. We find something that feels hard or upsetting — something real that bugs us — and we hang onto it as evidence of our bad day. And then we pile on with other little moments of negativity until we are rolling in bad feelings about things that just a moment before were only a little inconvenient or irritating.
We feel out of sorts and then we go looking for more bad stuff until we become buried by it.
While at EXACTLY the same time you are noticing all this rotten stuff, the sun is coming up again. People, it does this EVERY DAY. Remarkable.
And then your eyes open wide to see it, and your heart beats even without you thinking about it.
At EXACTLY the same time you are feeling like things are terrible and lost, somebody’s life is better because you are in it filling a little piece of darkness with your light – without even knowing it.
At EXACTLY the same time you are feeling like the day has been too hard, you get to take a sip of fresh water and fill your belly with food. You can turn up the tunes during the morning commute and shake it to Uptown Funk all alone in the car and then you get to laugh and think of the all the music you love, and about that concert you went to with your girlfriends and wasn’t that JUST AWESOME?
And oh my, you love your friends. Like really. In fact you love other people too and that is just so dang lucky and good.
Do you see? At EXACTLY the same time that you are holding to all that is bad, you are missing all that is good. It’s here too. Right now.
It is all here in the same moment. The confusing and creative and bad and good and loving and lonely and sad and happy and beautiful and ugly. It is all in every moment.
The outcome of your day, then, will be determined by what you focus on.
I encouraged (read: nagged) Sweet P to get in the shower. And suggested she wash the bad feelings away (as well as the stink of the day).
After all, we’d dealt with the real challenges, felt the sadness, came up with solutions. No need to hang onto the icky residue.
I heard her turn on the water, and slip into the tub. A few seconds later, her little voice was singing again.
