There’s a morning newscaster here in Austin where I live who routinely ends his newscasts with, “Make it a good day,” vs, “Have a good day.”
So what’s the big deal? The big deal is the intentionality of it. Beyond being a very overused and tired out cliché, “Have a good day” is passive. Many things in life can stop that from happening: bad weather, traffic, a bad boss, fighting with your spouse or teenager, or both. Or there may be bigger issue on your plate like chronic illness, loss of a loved one or severe depression. How can anyone be expected to have a good day with THAT going on?
You can’t always smile. There are plenty of good, solid and legitimate reasons people have pain and suffering. I’m not here to minimize or trivialize any of them.
People have often called me Pollyanna because I tend to seek out the proverbial silver lining in every thundercloud, which can really nauseate some. I do not do this to in any way deny the gravity or intensity of any given situation. Instead, my intention is to counterbalance, to find as much light as possible to see something beyond the pain and misery that is worth the effort of enduring. Sometimes you just have to accept pitch blackness for a little while, but there is usually some small candle somewhere, if you keep looking for it.
Most days, for most folks are not really that dark and heavy. We tend to hang on to things that are really disposable like the finger someone gave you in traffic, or the comment someone made as you passed the water fountain, even the fight you had with your partner last night. Plenty of bad stuff happens in life and we need to address them appropriately, but we tend to be collectors of it, letting our attention drift towards it.
My point here is to suggest that we choose to look for and actually see the more beautiful, more joyful things in our daily, crazy, busy, hectic and sometimes, maddening lives. I want, selfishly every single little pearl I can find in this sandy, gritty, rocky thing called life. I hope you do too.
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