OtherThanThat

It seems a common theme.

All things happen for a reason. Nothing by chance. There are no mistakes.

A few people in my life are experiencing some rather intense situations right now – things that impact their relationships, livelihoods and the very paths on which their feet have stolidly walked for some time. What’s been so remarkable to me is that each and every one of them has acknowledged the challenge of the situation and instead of wallowing in the pain, fear and potential tragedy their eyes are affixed on the positive … the lessons they’re learning, the value that the situation is bringing to them.

I love that.

It’s not just that I feel such joy to know that I’m surrounded by people whose approach to life is the decidedly glass half full kind, people who choose to live in solution and progress rather than point fingers and play victim. It’s that in so many ways these wonderful people help me to focus on doing the same in my life.

It hasn’t always been that way. I talked a good game and outwardly might have seemed to be glass half full (if not running over) and looking on the bright side of life, but the truth was that in private moments, my experience was altogether opposite of that.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. That whole “fake it until you make it” thing. That certainly is a valid statement and indeed even a practice, but there is something decidedly different when one’s inner and outer worlds lack congruity.

No. What I’m talking about here is the true, to the marrow of the bones belief that in all things there are lessons. We don’t necessarily get to see that lesson right away. Sometimes its clarity snaps into focus when glanced upon from a rear view mirror.

Sometimes the lessons are simple. Sometimes the lessons are profound. Sometimes the lessons are actually for someone else and we are merely a player in the stage of someone else’s Universally crafted narrative. Whatever the result, staying present and still in the moment can result in wonderful things.