A lot of people love rainy days. They love the dreary looks out the window at the rain hitting the hard ground. They love the overcast sky that makes inside seem so much cozier. They love the fresh smell that lingers when the rain is coming, and the earth has been waiting too long for a drink. My thoughts on rainy days are somewhere in the middle. I can’t say I ever ask for or look forward to the rain, but I understand the romanticism of it. If anything, the rain validates my mortgage because it demonstrates how I really need my house to keep my family warm and dry.
Every once in a while I think I’ve found myself actually craving the less literal rain that comes in life. Living day after day after day naturally sets our days up to be compared to one another. The change in pace can create a split that makes me see the bad but those feelings are always juxtaposed with the good. The good feels that much better when it can be compared to or come after a negative experience.
I do not believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do believe that we all have the power to internalize and react to any situation, and I’ve found myself usually striving for the lesson I’m supposed to learn when I find myself in a darker patch of life. Sometimes this is easy, but it can also be extremely breakable and nearly impossible. To me, the lesson I learn (even if it is really hard) is my silver lining.
It is so easy to fall into a negative spiral in our personal lives, work lives, and relationships. And I think if we have too many negative days in a row, we forget how to wait and seek out the good. The things that we would’ve normally seen as good become bad because of the lenses we keep over our eyes, and because (even though we don’t want to admit) sometimes it actually feels border line good to be in the middle of frenzied, destructive drama.
I think positivity, productivity, and purpose are essential things that keep can keep us going. So yes, if I’m being productive now, I know I’m setting myself up for also being productive later. If I’m thinking positively about the way I’ve started the day or my schedule, there’s a good chance that I will feel more optimistic with each thing I tackle. But being positive, productive, and purposeful doesn’t mean that you don’t see the bad and hard things as they are. Hard things give us a chance to grow and consider new perspectives with the goal of achieving some kind of cognitive peace. Sometimes I even really love the hard things because it gives me an opportunity to go somewhere new afterwards.
We always get a choice in how we react to any given situation. But if we line up too much negativity, the infection will spread and consume the light that usually helps lead us in a more (even if only slightly) positive direction. But just like negativity is contagious, I think positivity is, too. It all starts with our perspectives and how we choose to see what is around us. I’ve been living my whole life being told that our actions become our character, but lately I’ve taken it a step further back…what usually comes before our actions? Our thoughts.
Thoughts are powerful. (Well, duh.) They are the smallest beginnings to any and all of the biggest actions. And actions change things. Whether we are talking about how we think about ourselves or how we think about the people, events, and circumstances around us, it’s our thoughts that begin our reactions and perceptions. We always have a choice in perspective.
If we let a negative shield come over us, anything we see will look blue and gray. One of my goals for this year is to make the same happen but in the opposite direction. A happy nature will grow more happiness because I truly believe that what the mind looks for, the eyes will see.
Real Always Wins 