SUNNY SIDE UP
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
I realize everyone is having a strange and challenging time with something in their lives right now. Each morning when I walk by where homeless people sleep, or where they’ve slept, I am so grateful for my tough days because – as harsh as mine might sometimes be, I am among the fortunate many rather than the unfortunate few. And the few, there’s way too many of those, so we should all lend a hand or give a dollar when we can. It’s getting cold, and there is no comfort in living in a park or under some bushes …
Will this get better soon?
This 2020 experience is feeling a lot like going to a very bad movie – one where you want to walk out of, but one where you keep sitting there, thinking, ‘this will get better soon,’ and then it doesn’t.
But we sit there and sit there, and we don’t leave till it’s over. Because we paid our money, we suffer through it. All the time thinking, “It’s only a movie, how bad can it be?”
Worse than the loss of the ticket-price, worse than the brain-cell loss of watching it, we wasted that sit-time when we could have been, and like should have been, doing something more productive and fun.
Sometimes watching politics is like watching the endless repetition of NEWS cycles, or watching yet another bad movie – and watching the machinations of government at work is equally painful, and the convergence of too many things at once is hard to manage – for everyone.
A collision of deadlines, calendar, season changes … so much, and yet when we look at our calendars and when we go about our business in a world still shut-down in so many ways, it feels surreal.
Or, better said, it feels NOT REAL.
But it is real, isn’t getting instantly better, won’t change to good/sweet/lightness overnight, and we’re just hanging on to an out of control merry-go-round.
What do we know for sure, for certain, that will not change? Our answers should include confidence the sun will keep shining, planets will keep rotating, etc.
But in our lives – at home or at work, what can we count on for sure?
What can we count on that needs work to keep it in the ‘things I can count on’ column?
Let’s work on those items.
On everything else, we have to laugh at something, so let’s laugh at that.
The virus is a long way from a cure or wide delivery of an effective vaccine, but there is a bright side.
The economy is a long way from reopening fully, but there is a bright side.
Life as we knew it will never return to what it was, but there is a bright side.
The bright side?
Oh yes, a clean slate – forget everything that ever held you back because, if everything has changed, then most things we saw as limiting or as roadblocks in our life do not appear on a clean slate. Whether or not they were real, leave those mind-numbing life-blocking things behind. Just leave them.
Everything we want to do is available unless it’s been done – in which case we can copy them!
The sunny side of the street is not just real estate directions; it’s our attitude. The sunny side of life or the egg served sunny-side up is gloriously attractive – and the more we take that attitude into our days, the better chance we have for having a great day.
And, if you put enough great days together, soon you have a great week, a great month, and a great life, then you’ve discovered the sunny side of life.
Every time I’ve had a rough ride in life, another better 'something' arrived – sometimes late, sometimes barely encouraging, but better than the day before, lifting more than my spirits and chin.