Here is something to ponder as we begin the week:
What are your life’s biggest regrets?
Narrow it down to three.
…to one.
What did you do or where did you go instead?
How was that?
What did you learn?
What did you gain?
What would you have missed out on had you done it?
What will be your next big regret?
Are you going to let that happen?
Share your life lessons below.
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Iyanla Vanzant
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Tagged how to be positive, inspiration, internal reflection, pollyanna, positive, positive thinking, positivity
Are you happy?
On a scale from one to ten, one being ‘I want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week’ and ten being ‘I want to rise with the sun and explore this beautiful wonderful world around me’, where do you rank?
I think about this question sometimes and I find it depends on what part of my life I’m thinking about. In some parts, I’m a solid 8, even creeping toward a 9, and in other parts, dependent on the day or time of the month (I love you, Mother Nature), I’m a sure-fire zero — don’t worry dad, it doesn’t last.
So what is ‘happy’ and should we even be searching for happy all of the time?
If we didn’t have difficult times, would we appreciate the happy moments? I would like to think that we would – looking on the bright-side.
When I think about my friends and acquaintances, I wonder how many of them are happy. They seem happy. They laugh and joke and I enjoy their company. Do they think the same of me?
Are we happy on the outside and sad on the in? How can that be? If that’s true then we all deserve Academy Awards.
A quick search on Amazon.com under ‘depression’ finds 45,675 results but then realizing that includes ’The Great Depression’ (not referring to Jen and Brad’s break-up) a search of ‘mental health’ reveals 145,051 results.
I am often struck by people who visit third-world countries and come back and say ‘they have so little but they are so happy’.
Is that our problem? Do we have too much?
Our houses are larger than ever before, our televisions are larger, our desires are larger but it still doesn’t seem like enough. People keep wanting more and bigger and better in the hope that they will be happy.
But is it working?
Maybe it is true that less is more.
Smaller houses would mean that you would actually have to see the other people living in the same home.
Smaller televisions, or at least less of them in one home, would mean that families would have to converse more and watch quality (hopefully) family programming.
Perhaps then our desire for more would be diminished because with all of this new-found family time, we would be filled with actual, true, emotional connections to the ones we love…
…and in that case, more is always better.
What do you think? Share your thoughts below.
What do you think of this quote? Is it relevent to your life?
I love to write but I am not a voracious reader. Never have been. I want to be learned and quote passages from famous novels but have never put aside the time to read on a daily basis. Having said that though, when I come across a book that interests me, I cannot put it down.
In my quest to walk on the brighter-side of life, I recently picked up a children’s classic which I have always intended to read: Anne of Green Gables.
I have seen the movie (if you haven’t, rent it, now!) and the stage play, have visited the house on Canada’s Prince Edward Island and have, I admit, read an abridged version but I have never read the official full-length work.
Fifty million people in twenty different languages had preceded me in my venture so there must be something to it. And of course, they were right.
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1908 novel is as delightful today as it must have been when she first penned it.
Her vivid descriptions of the pristine landscapes of Canada’s east coast, how she captures Anne’s irrepressible childhood imagination, Anne’s trials and tribulations as she tries so hard to conform to what is expected of her, and the friendships and bonds that are formed as she warms even the coldest hearts of all those around her, captivate and endear the reader.
Anne and Pollyanna are no doubt kindred spirits.
Had I read this book as a child, I am certain I would have been a devout reader. As an adult, I appreciate it even more and resolve to make time for more classic literature, including the Anne of Green Gables sequels.
Thank you, Ms Montgomery, for bringing Anne Shirley into my life. She is a friend I am glad to have met.
“Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day
with no mistakes in it yet?”
– Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Have you read a children’s book that changed or shaped you somehow? Share it below.
Here’s a little something to think about as you start off your week:
ARE YOU STRIVING FOR PERFECTION?
What does perfection mean for you?
What does it look like, feel like, taste like?
Will you ever achieve perfection
or will it be something you strive for your whole life?
Why is PERFECTION so important to you? Is it an excuse to not try?
“It’s not ready yet. I can’t present it.”
or is it an excuse because you are SCARED?
What would happen if you stopped chasing perfection and presented your art, your project, yourself, AS IS?
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Tagged how to be positive, inspiration, internal reflection, perfection, pollyanna, positive thinking, positivity
For years I’ve been wrestling Pollyanna – struggling to stay positive in a world of negativity, trying to shield my children and myself from a bombardment of negative news and media images only to feel like it was a loosing battle – one against the masses – but that’s life. What can you do? Well, this…
I, for one, am going to turn negatives into positives, stop wrestling with my inner Pollyanna and let her shine and begin to refocus on the good in life.
As a child, like most I suppose, I was overwhelmingly positive – the quintessential 
Pollyanna, always looking on the bright side of life. If I fell and scraped my knee (which I did with remarkable frequency), I thought, “Well, it could have been worse, I could have scraped my nose too.”
But as I matured and the many things I hoped would happen, didn’t; the many things I imagined would happen, didn’t; the many things I expected to happen, didn’t; my Pollyanna braids unfurled and disappointment transformed them into a tight pony-tail of conformity or neatly constructed bun a-top my head while a that’s-life-what-did-you-expect attitude took shape.
As much as I have tried to suppress it, a Pollyanna-ness still flickers inside me, the warm embers of which help me to maintain an overall positive attitude, believing that things happen for a reason and there is a lesson to be learned from it all but from the vantage point of age (or what some might argue as ‘wisdom’), I wonder why I’ve accepted that adage.
Sure things happen but the reason might be because of my attitude toward it so just because it happened, do I need to accept it?
By changing my outlook, perhaps disappointment could turn into gratitude.
So I haven’t travelled to Italy, nor do I have the money to do so in the near future. It doesn’t mean that I won’t get there at some point. Instead I should be grateful that I can afford to put a roof over my head and can make spaghetti whenever I want. Italy is something I have to look forward to, and what is life without dreams?
Am I the only one out there yearning for the bright-side in life?
According to one recent listing of the top ten tourist attractions in the world, Disney theme parks took two of the top spots with a third at number eleven. Are we so discontented with reality that a combined 32,952,000 of us annually spend our hard-earned tax dollars to live a week in a fantasy world rather than in the world we created?
Perhaps it’s time to change our perspective.
Join in my observations as I share my findings — things I see around me to celebrate, the good in humanity, the quirky, things that make me smile or things that I’m pondering in my quest for what’s good out there — and send me some of your own ‘brighter-side of life’ observances for as that originator of all things zen said:
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” Buddha
Let’s focus on the good in the world. Fasten your pig-tails Buddha, this is going to be fun!
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Any links associated with blog posts are for your reference only. I am simply sharing my brighter-side-of-life findings and receive no compensation for such recommendations.
I’m spreading the positive, people. What you put out, you get back. Please keep all comments to a positive tone. Negative comments will not be posted.
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Tagged how to be healthy, how to be positive, inspiration, inspirational quotes, inspiring quotes, life quotes, motivational quotes, philosophy, pollyanna, positive quotes, positive thinking, quote, quotes and sayings
#B4Peace
Embracing Pollyanna 