Confronting Our Attitude

Life's Like This — To some, life is a breeze and for others it's just one head wind after another. Facing storms and challenges in life is simply, part of life. Many of us wish that we could avoid them altogether, that they would chart a course in a direction that steers clear of our personal lives and all the people we love and care for. But as we grow older and life unfolds, we quickly come to realize that the lessons and challenges of life are not for a select few — everyone must have their share of them to contemplate, to wrestle with, to try to make sense of, and to try to avoid again in the future. While it sometimes seems that others live lives that are free of many of the obstacles you or I are forced to confront, life does not discriminate — it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, the challenges of life are sure to unfold and must be met regardless of our wealth or social standing. How we meet the challenges we are confronted with will often dictate their outcome and the impact they eventually have on our lives.

The Power to Choose

Life’s Like This — Life can be either accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, it must be accepted. So often we go through life fighting what seems to be an endless battle with adversity in our lives; adversity that can completely overwhelm us and leave us confused, uncertain and perhaps even angry with the challenge before us. We struggle to make the most of our lives; to find the personal fulfillment and happiness we want only to be knocked down by forces that seem beyond our control. These forces, or obstacles, are sometimes unpredictable and when they appear, we are faced with a choice. Do we accept them to be a reality and that nothing can be done about them, or do we make a decision to overcome that challenge by setting in motion our own personal force that can alter the effect of that adversity in our life. The decision we make is one that can be life-transforming. We can choose to resign ourselves to the hand dealt us in life, or we can choose to reshuffle the cards, and deal ourselves a better hand, one that will bring us the happiness we have been seeking.

Trials of Life

Life’s Like This — Every flower that ever bloomed had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there. — Maria Delgado. In life, we often go through a lot of trials, or what you might think of as emotional garbage or obstacles, that prevent us from finding the peace and joy we all long for. Quite often, we have no choice in the trials that we are faced with. While some of them can be a result of personal choices, many of them we have no control over. Sometimes we might wonder why we have to go through a series of trials in life; why can’t it be smooth sailing? It would be nice if we didn’t have to go through them, but without the trials of life, we would be missing those ingredients that are, in my mind, essential for personal growth. You simply can’t go through life without getting your hands dirty in the growing process. There are going to be mud puddles that you may need to step through, dirt you may need to crawl over, and fields of dirt that you have to plow through to experience the happiness you have longed for. It can be a messy path, but one that we need to endure to find true peace and joy in life.

Pushing Your Buttons

Life’s Like This — There will always be people that will irritate you in the most frustrating manner. People who know how to push your buttons — buttons that can set off a chain-reaction of emotions that, if not caught in time and put in check, can quickly escalate and lead to consequences that can profoundly impact your life. Finding ways to avoid people that push your buttons would seem to be the best way of coping, but in reality, there will always be things in life that you have no control over and can cause you to react in a way that is childish or completely inappropriate. People are often unpredictable and that includes ourselves. We would like to be able to say we are in control of our emotions and behavior but when certain situations present themselves, we find that we are not as mature as we perhaps thought we were. It’s almost as if a little child is living within us who is fighting desperately to get someones attention and we refuse to stop our bad behavior until we are forced to by consequences imposed by society.

Courage to Change

Life’s Like This — Some people simply drift through life. Their choices, when they can muster the will to choose, tend to follow the course of least resistance. Finding the strength to follow the right path or the courage to simply do the right thing seems to be the furthest thing from their minds. It is often much easier to choose the road with the fewest bumps and grinds to get to the destination we want. And when we do encounter rough patches, we often complain about them rather than looking at them as an opportunity for personal growth and character building. Often, when we do make that difficult choice, when adversity slaps us in the face, we get discouraged and want to quit. The true test of one’s character is not only the choices one makes in life but how one responds to the consequences as a result of those choices. 

Choices and Responsibility

 Life’s Like This — It isn’t often in life that people are willing to take responsibility for their behavior despite the potential of negative consequences. I find it refreshing to hear stories of people that do just that; people who are willing to do the right thing no matter what. We all have to be responsible for our personal behavior and how we interact with others. Responsibility is part of every facet of our lives, and an important test of our character is how well we fulfill our responsibilities, not only to ourselves and our family, but to society and God.

Values and Choices

Life’s Like This — Every day of our lives we are faced with choices we need to make. The choices we make in life often put us at odds with our value system or our moral compass. The path we choose to take can bring happiness into our lives or it can bring negative consequences that we would prefer to live without. From the time we are children when our life lessons begin to take root, we encounter situations that test our moral fiber. Sometimes we learn valuable lessons from these tests, and other times, we simply continue to make the same mistakes down the road of life. Making the right choices can save us alot of headaches and stress and bring us peace of mind.

The True Measure of Success

Life’s Like This — The true measure of success can and should be measured by something more worthwhile than money. When you think about it, our minds are thought factories that can produce good and bad thoughts — or ideas. In the living of my life, there have been countless ideas that have popped into my mind that could have been financially rewarding. But like the proverbial procrastinator, I failed to act on my ideas, and as a result, I was not able to reap the potential rewards. Fortunately in life, not everything has to be measured by how much money you make. Yes, we all want to be successful in life, but because of the way society thinks, we often measure our success in terms of how much money we will make. The reality is that success can and should be measured by something more worthwhile than money. 

A Time For Reflection

Life’s Like This — With the passing of time, new opportunities arise that can bring hope and fulfillment to your life. As the new year approaches, perhaps this is a good time to reflect on how well you lived your life in 2011. For many of us, life went on as it always has; we got up in the morning, attended to our personal care needs, went to our jobs, enjoyed our meals, came home, did some activity we enjoy, and went to sleep. If you ever saw the movie “Groundhog Day,” Bill Murray plays a weatherman that finds himself living the same day over and over again. In the movie, Murray finds himself at odds with himself and the mistakes he had been making in his life over the course of a single day. He then is given the opportunity to get it right by changing how he behaved toward other people. And once he got it right, his life was able to move forward. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all could do that?  
 
 
While we can’t live each day of our lives over and over again as Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day, we can make the choice to reflect on how well we have been living our lives and then make choices to try to get it right in the future. What better time to do that then as we enter the new year. I know in my life, there has been a great deal of time that I squandered during the past year. I got caught up in a daily routine that was simply routine. For whatever reason, I became use to living my life in a vacuum and found it devoid of those things that gave real meaning to life. I think we all, at least at some time in our lives, find ourselves swimming in an ocean with nothing to keep us afloat but the daily routines we have become accustomed to. When you think about it, that can easily lead to first-class boredom.

The Art of Being Gracious

Life’s Like This — It is never too late to learn how to be gracious. While Christmas has now passed, the opportunity is before us to reflect on how well we were gracious to our family and friends. The art of being gracious should never be lost or forgotten. The dictionary defines gracious as being pleasantly kind, benevolent and courteous. Over the holidays we have numerous opportunities to practice being gracious. It may come while hosting a party for friends or while you hosted your family for Christmas festivities. It may even come as a guest at a party. So, what does it mean to be gracious? The art of being gracious is all about how you make the people around you feel. Imagine going to a party or family gathering and finding yourself ignored or made to feel un-welcomed. Whether it was intentional or not, when you find yourself in the company of people who are not gracious, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. You may even find yourself not wanting to be in that person’s company again. That is how profound an impact an ungracious host can have on you. The flip-side is when you are ungracious toward others. They, in turn, may have second thoughts about inviting you to their party or wanting to be in your company again. So, what are the characteristics of a gracious person?