Oct 23 2007

Living Life Together

Living life together…In our world full of busy lifestyles and hard work we sometimes forget how we were created to live: together. If you visit with most people over 60 they can usually tell you how they were just down the dirt road from Grandma’s home cookin or just around the block from Uncle John and his odd shaped glass bottles filled with Coca-Cola. It’s amazing to me that in what seems like no time at all we have gone from a country and a people that valued nothing more than friends and family to a country and a people that seem to want nothing to do with friends or family.

Stories of best friends stealing spouses to daily divorces, high school sweethearts going from ‘love’ to ‘hate’ in a heartbeat–all these tales seem to have infiltrated our society so much that we don’t even bat an eye. Instead we wake in the morning headed out to punch the clock, grab some drive through for lunch then back to the grind. Only to get home in time to drop the kids off at practice or dance then rush home to get the pizza that’s being delivered for the fifth time this week. I’m just tired writing about this hectic schedule! The year’s pass and we somehow don’t even realize that we certainly have NOT lived life together. Maybe it’s high time that we re-evaluate how our time and energies are spent and learn a lesson from times past…that maybe it wasn’t so bad to be able to walk outside and smell Grandma’s cookin…and maybe Uncle John’s crazy old stories weren’t so boring after all. Maybe living life together could happen again…maybe.


Oct 23 2007

What’s Done is Done: Letting Go

‘What’s done is done…….Today will be great.’

I gave this advice today to a young man that struggles with letting go of yesterday. Not only does he struggle with letting go but he also sees most of life as that glass of milk that is half empty, not half full. I feel confident in giving my young friend this advice because, well, I know what he feels like. I know what it feels like to hang on to the junk of life and never forgive myself for what I’ve done, or not done. I know what it feels like to be hurt and to hang on to that pain for far too long. I also know what it feels like to go to bed at night and already think I know that tomorrow is going to be terrible. Have you ever felt this way? Well, it’s amazing when we learn the lesson that ‘what’s done is done…..today will be great.’ You see, when the bad day’s come it’s because we let them. It’s our choice. When we don’t forgive, it’s our fault, not the one that did that terrible thing to us. When we hang on to the past: the hurts, failures, lost love, lost job, etc. It’s our fault, not someone else’s. Friend, until we recognize that our version of life comes from our vision of life and WE choose that vision, well, until we truly grasp this thought we will never truly live. Do you see the glass half empty? Check your vision…because from where I stand it just looks like good, healthy milk…and there’s always more where it came from.

What’s done is done…….today will be a great day!