escape from the rat race

 I feel this post requires a bit of explaining as to how it came about. I wasn’t going to publish this post as I thought it was full of mushy stuff that no-one but me could understand but after talking with a man that has a great deal of wisdom when it comes to processing events in your life I decided to lay it out there and not be scared or ashamed of what I felt. That man was David Bohl from Slow Down Fast, and I will be forever grateful to him for sharing his wisdom with me. 

 The post came about from a particularly sad moment in my life when a good friend of mine attempted to take his own life. Thankfully he had second thoughts and thank god he was able to call an Ambulance that got him to hospital in time. I wrote this post for him and also for myself to try and re-focus my own thinking after this shock. I hope that you too can find some hope and inspiration from it. Here goes….. 

 There has been a long-running fued in our household regarding two conifer trees that were growing outside our lounge room balcony. Belinda insisting on letting them grow for the sake of privacy and me, well I just wanted the view back. One of the reasons we bought our house in the first place was the magnificent view that it had.

 Finally today she gave in and the trees where cut down. The neighbours must think that I am a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, getting excited over trees being cut down!

 So what in god’s name does this have to do with the title of this post? Glad you asked! First take a look at the pictures of the view. Beautiful isn’t it? No, I’m not hear to gloat about the house we have, the market was very low at the time we bought and there is no way we could afford the same house in today’s market!

 What I am trying to say through this example is that although sometimes our outlook on life may be distorted or even completely blocked, not by damn conifer trees I hope!, but by events in our lives that make it hard to focus on what we do have that brings us hapiness. Often times these ‘events’ are out of our control and I guess there is a certain amount of helplessness that comes with them which can make the situation seem alot worse than it may be.

 From my point of view I have had a few challenges over the past twelve months, first physically which then led to financially and it is only now that I have realised the importance of looking past the conifer trees, so to speak, and to find inspiration for my life from the things that I do still have around me. When these challenges first began to become problems my outlook was very clouded and I focused on the negatives instead of looking for the great view that was still there, it was just a bit harder to see.

 I have found that training your mind to think this way is no easy feat and although I knew how I should have been thinking at the time it took a long time and a lot of perseverance before I truly believed it. However I am reminded of some of the positives in my life most morning’s when there are three smiling faces looking up at me from the end of the bed when I wake up!

 Although life can often throw us a few curve-balls, sometimes more than one at a time, I think that there is allways something left in our lives that can bring about positive thoughts and feelings and this is what we need to concentrate on to help us make the most of a situation we would rather not be in. Take a look at the bigger picture and focus your energy on things that help you live the life you deserve, one of happiness.

 Life was never meant to be easy, as they say, but if for even one moment in a day you can focus your thoughts on something that brings about happy, positive feelings then life will be easier to handle. Also there is always someone out there who cares for you, whether you realize it or not. Unfortunately it often takes us humans a lot to admit that we care for someone and I think if we were to show our feelings more people would understand that they are not alone and that there is someone out there that wants to know if you are doing ok.

 Life is way too short to leave your feelings buried inside you and quite possibly expressing to someone that you care about them may bring them to see that it isn’t all doom and gloom and potentially may even save their life! Don’t worry about whether or not you think they want to hear it, let them know anyway because as I found out you never know how someone is feeling deep down inside and it may be all they need to hear to make their life a bit easier. If you can help anyone see the good things around them they will be better off for it.

 I guess what I am trying to say and what I have learnt is that no-matter how bad things are for you at the moment if you try your hardest to look at the positive aspects of your life, the great view, the positive view will come into focus again. Sure it takes a lot of work and you need a lot of self-talk to make it happen, but take it from me once you get there you will never want to go back! The view is too good!

Craig

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 4:23 am and is filed under Positive Thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.