The Gift of If You Want To

 

Positive Pensées

Kathy King

The Gift of If You Want To

 "If you want to, you can find a million reasons to hate life and be angry at the world." Or, if you want to, you could find a million reasons to love life and be happy.  Choose wisely."

Cari Welsh

 

If you want to, you can see all the gray on a rainy day.

Or if you want to, you can see the green and verdant colors washed by the rain.

If you want to, you can hate the soul-sucking heat.

Or if you want to, you can be happy for the seasons that bring cold, warm, hot and crisp fall days. 

If you want to, you can see that you don’t have everything you thought you would have. 

Or if you want to, you can count your blessings and be very glad. 

Be glad for a home, a place to lay your head. 

Be glad that you even have those blasted chores, which you dread. 

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Or if you are truly creative, you will see that the glass is refillable.  

If you want to, you can look around and see that blessings abound even in the smallest of things. 

Choose some if you want to bits each and every day.

If you want to, you can pave a more positive and fulfilling road ahead.

Make the path lovely; make the path kind.

Teach the "if you want to" mindset to others.

Help others see If you want to, there is beauty in just about everything we see.

 

If you want to.  What a choice of words, right? One must admit that there are days that you just don’t want to.  Am I right? So much of life is how we look at it.  When I see the news and what is going on with the countries ravaged with war, it is an immediate attitude check. Days like today where in my little blessed world it was a no good, very bad day.. I only needed to look at the suffering of those around the world..  Even the suffering that is near.  It gives perspective.  

What If you want to moments do we have  do we endure on a daily basis?  I have a friend who finds brushing her teeth a bit tedious. I have always thought this was funny. She decided that for the three minutes that she was brushing her teeth, she would pray for a varying list of folks. She puts that list on her mirror and proceeds to brush, brush, brush, and pray. I read a few days ago that when people hate something, it is accompanied by a bevy of emotions. They are trying to connect with a life situation or a person (even if that connection is not necessarily good) out of fear. It's almost as if you're looking for a sense of belonging, even if the emotion isn't particularly well-designed. There used to be a lady who lived at the senior center where I work who sat at the front entrance each and every day, and when you asked her how she was doing, her response was, "Terrible! Just terrible!  I hate it here! "Get me out of here!" After getting this response from her several times, I asked the management if she was indeed okay. They told me that she was upset because she had to leave the home that she had shared with her late husband for many, many years. She never got over having to leave. She kept complaining so much that the management had to move her sitting area away from the front entrance because she was scaring off potential tenants.  She eventually went to live with her children, which made her much happier. This was a truly instructive moment to find the "if you want to" when life gets tricky. My husband has a lifelong friend who has been in the Army for a very long time. War is ugly all around. If there could be a world without war, that would be amazing. This friend has done several tours of duty in the Middle East. He has seen friends killed, quite honestly. My heart goes out to him. Sure, he chose to serve, but God bless those who choose that role. One very grave time, he was in a convoy, when suddenly a suicide bomber blew himself up right in front of their group of trucks. His shoulder was injured, and some other soldiers had minor injuries, but no one lost their lives that day. He recently shared a video with us that was recorded right after the event took place. He looked at the camera and said (paraphrased) that this could have been much, much worse.  But I am alive, everyone in the group is alive, and we are going to be thankful for that. God help us that we never endure a situation of that magnitude.  I would say that this was a much heightened example of if you want to. Right now, as I write this, there is a war raging in Europe and the Middle East. It is a world away, yet the media lets us see just how terrible this can be. Let this be a motivating factor for us to choose, if you want to, and steer it in the direction of thankfulness.

My books are on Amazon!

The Quacktastic Adventures of Ellie and Lord Barks a Lot

Clean it Up!  Wash it Up!

Coming soon:

Appalachian Allegory

The Case of the Missing Honk Honk

The Case of the Missing Ornaments