When I was around 19 years old, I had a car accident at work. No one was hurt, but I did cause some damage to government property, and so I had to be ‘spoken to’. Afterwards, I had an older employee come up to me, and in his attempt to be understanding, he said something to the effect of: “Awww, don’t let it get to you. I know it’s hard, but try and let it roll off of you if ya can. Remember, it takes ten ‘Atta boys’ to get rid of one ‘Aw shit’.” Decades later and that saying remains true.
Problem is, I can’t think of too many times when I reached ten ‘atta boys’ to cancel out the one ‘aw shit!’ before another reared its ugly head. However…I have discovered, as of late, that there are a couple of ways to combat that. One is to go about my day with the intention of giving one person an ‘atta boy/girl’, and the other is to realize that we actually do live in a beautiful world.
Some would say that the news disproves that. That in actuality, the world is a pretty harsh place. And to that I would say, “Yes…and no.”
‘Yes’ because that’s how I tend to view the world. ‘No’ because of the lesson I learned from Fred Rogers (Mr. Roger’s Neighbourhood).
He told the story of when he was a boy and one day while watching the news, he asked his Mom why so many bad things happen in the world. His Mom told him that whenever he saw something bad on the news, to look for the helpers, because they’re all around.
As I pondered that I came to the conclusion that his Mom was right. It all depends what you want to see.
While it may be my natural ‘bent’ to see what’s wrong, I’d much rather see what’s good…or beautiful.
So this year I am on a personal quest in finding beautiful. You’re welcome to join me!
Finding Beautiful 