Anytime a knot tangles in the vision one has for their life, me and hubby have a joke where we will laugh and say "Building Character Baby! Just Building Character!" It is true, that nothing builds character faster than true hardship or even tragedy in ones life. Hardship carves out a hellacious obstacle course where you can persevere to maneuver it until you work your way out altogether or give up. Tragedy forces you to either withdraw from the world and shrivel, or to seek out and find the blessings with in, filling your heart with gratitude. Through either one, FEAR can outright paralyze one into inaction altogether, freezing one into a block of time that fails to move forward in any direction.
Much how the wind or a river carves its way throughout the landscape, carving out pieces of art to be changed forever, what life throws at individual does the same thing. Chiseling away a grand work of art, a Masterpiece that will ooze beauty and lightness or the darkness of a troubled mind. Poverty, cancer, large debt, divorce, loss of a loved one, crime, money pit homes, terminal illnesses, bad relationships, low self esteem, unforeseen evictions, severe weather. All these things and more can bombard an individual with hardships unimaginable to others. It is how one handles them which determines what kind of character will be built.
Your mind needs to be strong to create a piece of art, rather than be broken yet how we meet hardships, boils down to choice. We have a choice in how to feel about it ( our emotions) as well as what we will do about it ( the physical ) and it is always about choices. We can choose to meet each sense of hardship with humor and positive intent and fill our hearts with gratitude.
Greeting life, bills, terminal illness, judgmental people who don't agree with your lifestyle choices, where you live, your work, all the difficulties and struggles each day brings......can all be met with grace, dignity and joy, with a positive mind. These are choices one can make no matter what their circumstances may be. I am not saying meeting life this way is easy, for it is not always easy, the harder life knocks one may get, the harder it can be, but it is still a choice.
By making the choices to not be a victim and taking a proactive role, choosing carefully our emotions on how to feel about our situations and deciding the actions we want to take to change or overcome things, reduces feelings of stress a hundred fold.
It seems when we follow more of the negative side of thoughts and actions, stress builds as if in a pressure cooker, ready to explode all over everything at any given moment. Being paralyzed by fear can be even worse, more like a volcano ready to erupt. The end result for either one of these, are usually quite disastrous. Yet many people tend to easily fall into these spiraling down emotions and choices. Positive thinking seems so much harder and so many are wrapped in a world of being victim, they do not realize they are in control of their feelings and actually have choices.
Instead of complaining how you hate being broke, do something about it and truly open your eyes to all the blessings around you. Choices
Instead of treating someone who has terminal illness like they are on death row, with no hope left and nothing to offer the world, treat them like someone who has an amazing story to share and let your light engulf them with love and laughter. Choices.
If you have had large debt forever and a day, complaining constantly and fear taking hold of every part of life, change it! It is what it is, learn, grow, laugh, move on and change today. Choices
Grace, Dignity, Humor and Positive attitudes, these are all the building character traits that hardship could be chiseling out from you. Your Choice, what kind of a Masterpiece do you want to create?
I absolutely love our life because I choose too, how do you choose yours?
Much how the wind or a river carves its way throughout the landscape, carving out pieces of art to be changed forever, what life throws at individual does the same thing. Chiseling away a grand work of art, a Masterpiece that will ooze beauty and lightness or the darkness of a troubled mind. Poverty, cancer, large debt, divorce, loss of a loved one, crime, money pit homes, terminal illnesses, bad relationships, low self esteem, unforeseen evictions, severe weather. All these things and more can bombard an individual with hardships unimaginable to others. It is how one handles them which determines what kind of character will be built.
Your mind needs to be strong to create a piece of art, rather than be broken yet how we meet hardships, boils down to choice. We have a choice in how to feel about it ( our emotions) as well as what we will do about it ( the physical ) and it is always about choices. We can choose to meet each sense of hardship with humor and positive intent and fill our hearts with gratitude.
Greeting life, bills, terminal illness, judgmental people who don't agree with your lifestyle choices, where you live, your work, all the difficulties and struggles each day brings......can all be met with grace, dignity and joy, with a positive mind. These are choices one can make no matter what their circumstances may be. I am not saying meeting life this way is easy, for it is not always easy, the harder life knocks one may get, the harder it can be, but it is still a choice.
By making the choices to not be a victim and taking a proactive role, choosing carefully our emotions on how to feel about our situations and deciding the actions we want to take to change or overcome things, reduces feelings of stress a hundred fold.
It seems when we follow more of the negative side of thoughts and actions, stress builds as if in a pressure cooker, ready to explode all over everything at any given moment. Being paralyzed by fear can be even worse, more like a volcano ready to erupt. The end result for either one of these, are usually quite disastrous. Yet many people tend to easily fall into these spiraling down emotions and choices. Positive thinking seems so much harder and so many are wrapped in a world of being victim, they do not realize they are in control of their feelings and actually have choices.
Instead of complaining how you hate being broke, do something about it and truly open your eyes to all the blessings around you. Choices
Instead of treating someone who has terminal illness like they are on death row, with no hope left and nothing to offer the world, treat them like someone who has an amazing story to share and let your light engulf them with love and laughter. Choices.
If you have had large debt forever and a day, complaining constantly and fear taking hold of every part of life, change it! It is what it is, learn, grow, laugh, move on and change today. Choices
Grace, Dignity, Humor and Positive attitudes, these are all the building character traits that hardship could be chiseling out from you. Your Choice, what kind of a Masterpiece do you want to create?
I absolutely love our life because I choose too, how do you choose yours?
Thank you for the reminder, Carrie. :-)
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