The Missing Peace

You know what's been missing? It's me.

I have been missing.

I'm talking about the me that I am at my core, the girl who chooses her attitude purposefully, and purposefully chooses a positive one. The girl who keeps her sunnyside up.

I took some time recently to sift through my archives and I saw time and time again the times I gave myself a much needed attitude adjustment. I remembered a turning point in my life when I found this quote from Charles Swindoll and it was so profound, such a life-changing realization, it burned itself upon my brain, like a tattoo.

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day. We cannot change our past … we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

I made copies of it and hung them everywhere. My refrigerator, my office, my bathroom. I meditated on it so hard, I might as well have eaten it.

But isn't it incredible how quickly life, its changes, can cause you to forget? Like a tattoo on your back that you can't see if you don't choose to look at, and if no one reminds you of it it's probable that you could forget it's there. That's how I forgot my brain tattoo. I stopped looking at it.

The thing is, you have to not be controlled by your circumstances. You have to seek your peace, and you have to choose to hold onto it, no matter what. You have to choose to be happy regardless of circumstances in order to have a happy life. I can choose to be happy instead of worried, I can choose to be grateful for all I do have instead of focusing on the things I don't.  I can do that, and I'm going to again.

I'm going to take my eyes off the not-so-good things and I'm going to plant them steadfastly on the very good things that are indeed plentiful if I will choose to see them.

And anyway, things could always be worse. (that right there is a pretty helpful mantra for anyone)

How I'm going to get myself back in the habit of focusing on all the good is I'm going to commit to doing gratitude posting again, but just once a week this time.

I've done this before, but that, and several failed NaBloPoMo attempts over the years have shown me that I'm all fail at the blogging-every-single-blessed-day-in-a-month thing.

I'll see you next week, chock full of gratitude and bliss... count on it.