Recently I was observing my children, and watched how quickly they took the few hours of the day that had passed, and turned it into a no-good, awful day.  It got me thinking: why do we think life should (or want it to) be all easy, fun and happy? And when it is not, do we look to place blame, get upset or look for a quick fix and a way out? That life is, and should be, all and only the good stuff, is the garbage of someone trying to sell you something. At least I believe so.

We have this one wild and beautiful life to live, and living, in itself, means that we experience all.  We don’t experience just the light of day, but we experience the deepest darkness of night.  So too, with joy and suffering, and pain and happiness.  All of it is part of our living fully on this earth.  To deny anything is to deny a part of our experience. Pain, loss, anger, frustration, are all also part of the human spectrum of experience. They are not something to shun, run away from, suppress or distract ourselves from.

But while life is intrinsically made up of both sides of the spectrum of feelings and situations, our overall perspective comes from how we choose to view our experiences. In conversation with my kids (after I watched the spiral of negativity happen in all its splendor), I came up with the best analogy I could muster up in the moment, and I think it gets the point across:
I asked them what happens when we are actively looking for something? Say we are driving, and I say “who can spot a cow”? We begin to train our eyes to catch every damn cow out there. All of a sudden there are cows everywhere!

So, it appears that whatever we skew our vision towards is what we will find, because lets’ be real, there is plenty of evidence for both positives and negatives. Thinking about the good that you see in each person, experience and circumstance will begin to shift your impression of it. It’s not that there is nothing bad, it’s simply that you are spending more time and attention focusing on, and highlighting the good.  I like to think, as with most skills, that we can hone this skill so that over time we become better at seeing the positive in whatever circumstance we may be in. I’m no saint, but I feel like this past year I have been learning a lot about my own critical and judgmental eye. I am learning to shift my attention and awareness to see good, even in some pretty bad situations. It doesn’t always work, but we do become more creative as we turn tests and difficulties into moments of growth as we shine up our souls.

So we see that every day is filled with “bad” and “good” moments, experiences and interactions. The key to our overall perspective and experience of it, is what we train our eye to focus on. That which we draw attention to, becomes the overriding impression and perception. We can find evidence to prove either point, but it just seems a lot wiser to go for something positive.