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Thursday, January 21, 2010

One...Two...Three...

Today was a long day. And while I complain, my long day was only a secondary effect of the serious problems of people I encounter.

Life is a balance. I'm not speaking philosophically, no yin & yang, no karma. I'm talking about the cycles of ups and downs we all encounter. Why does it seem that "when it rains, it pours"? (Quite literally so in SD right now)

In the past, I'd get blinding headaches everyday, feel tired, lethargic, just plain blah, and chalked it up to the thyroid. But in changing my outlook to focusing on the positive changes in my life, the things I can control, the headaches started to fade, my energy level went up, and I even started losing weight. (Makes sense, mainly chronic stress leads to imbalance in stress hormones that impede weight loss, but I digress...). I'm at the point where being around negative people sucks the life out of me, I literal passed out when I got home after 8 hours of being around a negative person recently. I can't help but wonder how much life I've sucked out of other people when I was so openly disdainful.

I used to be very critical, negative, and skeptical. While I am still critical and skeptical to a smaller degree, I refuse to be negative. After my first (almost disastrous) semester in law school, I made a conscious effort to turn my focus to the good things in life.



We are born with certain predispositions. Some people are naturally nice, considerate, shy, mean, boisterous, etc. This being said, it is not easy to change these settings. But the way I see it, we waste so much time focusing on what we can't control. All that energy spent worrying about exams, car problems, health, money, whatever--it drains our spirit and physical energy. What good is to keep on running over the bad facts in our heads, and thinking about what we wish we could have done differently? Why dwell and talk incessantly about the pitfalls that are surrounding you at the moment? If we took that energy and turned it into something positive, think about the things we'd get done. So what am I doing, to turn my negative energy into something positive? I'm baking cookies for some of the homeless people I drive by everyday. It feels better to think about how much that will brighten up their day already. What do/can you do?

The point is, on days like this, when I'm in a down cycle, I take a deep breath, count my many blessings, and think about things that do make me happy, like these:

To put it more eloquently, I've stolen a friend's favorite quote:
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be
shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind.
Think big anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack if you help them.
Help people a
nyway.
Give the world the best you have and you might get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
- Unknown

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