A while back, I mentioned that I would be adding specific posts to my blog.  One is the Aloha Peaceful Life series that Momma’s Soapbox and I began when she was in Hawaii for a month.  It’s on haitus at the moment (very temporarily) until she gets her life back (smile).  With college campus visits, house, kids, blah blah blah, she’s holding her own but hasn’t been able to blog!

The other topic I planned to start a semi-series on is gratitude.  Since we are entering, or in, that season where the American people are more apt to focus on thankgfulness, it is a perfect time to start.

Lately it seems as if everyone I’ve run into is – hmm, how to say this – negative, whiney-hiney, pessimistic, worry-focused, seeing the glass half empty, seeing the worst in every situation – oh I don’t know – but they sure have been downers. 

I’ve been accused of being an ostrich, living with my head stuck in the sand and not facing reality.  Isn’t that an awful thing to say to someone simply because they won’t join into the worry-wart game?  Well, I won’t.  When people focus on negative, on putting others down, on judging, on cursing, on tearing up the government, on pointing out others’ faults, on anything that, instead of being a thoughtful commentary, ends up being a major gripe session – I don’t join in.  My mind and I are not a garbage dump.

It is my responsibility to watch what goes into my ears, eyes, and mind.  Just as I won’t watch horror movies because I don’t want to be filled with those images and fear, I don’t have to allow someone’s words to paint pictures of things I just don’t need to hear, see or think about.

So how is this about gratitude, you ask??  Well, I know I’m doubly glad for uplifting bloggers and will be posting links to them in future Gratitude posts (today is Momma’s Soapbox who fought the big C and won and is a very positive person).  I appreciate people who are encouragers.  I love those who focus on the positive instead of the negative.  Why? Because no amount of worrying or griping changes a thing.  I believe that negativity actually makes your life more miseable.  How can you be happy if you look at life that way?

Oh and before you get all twisted up and huffy, you don’t know where I’ve been or what my life has been like.  You don’t know if I’ve always walked the primose path or dodged the landmines and lived to tell about it.  You know zipola about me but I can say that if I’ve chosen to live positively, anyone can!  And I know so many others who have had horrid things happen in their lives or that have happened to them, and they are still upbeat and living life to the maximum. 

I used to be a champion negative person and a supernatural worrier.  Oh man, I was so good at it, I should have been given an award.  One day, things happened that caused me to stop and look at my life.  I chose to start learning how to be positive, to quit saying what I didn’t want to happen in my life, to start being more upbeat and positive.  To laugh more than whine, to sing more, to ENJOY.

Why not enjoy life?  It is the only one you have and how it goes is in your hands.  Why not look for the good in things?  Fretting isn’t going to change anything so why not??  Why not learn to focus on the positive?  It isn’t easy at first, but you can do it!  Why not learn to speak life and joy instead of worry and unhappiness?  It not only affects the atmosphere around you, it affects the people, too.

Let’s not be like everyone else!  Let’s focus on joy, happiness, the best in everyone and everything!  Let’s dance though life!  Let’s swirl and twirl, jump in mud puddles, pick wildflowers, walk in the moonlight, sing at the top of our lungs, and say THANK YOU all the time.  As the song says, let’s accentuate the positive, OK? OK!