Dear readers….I got writing this and it just kept going… so forgive the length and enjoy your day.
I have a character in my family we call “Uncle Bob”. He’s one of those people who you look forward to seeing just so you can ask him how he is doing. A conversation almost always begins like this.
“Hey Bob, how you doing?
His reply - “If I was any better I’d be twins.”
For the nearly 10 years I have known Bob his reply to any form of a greeting has always been upbeat, filled with positivity, and possibility. If a person didn’t know better they might think Bob hasn’t had and doesn’t have any problems. I happen to know some of the significant hardships Bob has been through…not because he’s told me of course. Because Bob isn’t one to talk of or dwell on such things.
I try to be like Bob. I try to focus on the positive and the possible and I work hard to deliberately fill my mind and my language with words that lift and inspire. I believe this practice, more than any other, helps me keep my focus, my language and my life on a more positive path. I believe such a practice helps to make us more attractive to good things in life, I believe it increases our like-ability and magnifies our pos-abilities.
There are those in life who don’t, won’t or can’t seem to understand or accept our deliberately positive attitude.
“Hey Kirk, How was your weekend?”
“I had a wonderful weekend, heck It was Awesome!”
In reality it was filled with challenges and the other stuff that makes up this experience we call life.
Have you ever vocalized your enjoyment of life so much that people only to have people say foolish things to you like. “You seem so happy, and either imply or say directly that they would be too if they had your nearly perfect life.” Perfect life? Who has that?
I have another friend who seems to think his problems are so much greater than anyone else’s that he is obsessed with talking about them to anyone who will listen. The problem is everyone is tired of listening - because that’s all they every seem to hear from him. The more they try to distance themselves from being his “needed ear” the more his need to be listened too seems to go unmet and the situation exacerbates itself.
Most of us are now or have experienced a relationship with someone like this…we love them, but just can’t dedicate the time to being the friend they seem to need…especially considering that all the listening we have done in the past hasn’t seemed to do any good.
I recently listened to a friend bemoan the unfairness of his life for over an hour. The situation he described was pretty awful - I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with any of what he was experiencing.
At one point as I listened - he actually implied that I, along with other people had “no idea” of the unfairness and difficulty of what he was dealing with…and that their attempts at offering comfort or counsel were not even approaching being helpful to him.
As I listened - I began wondering if he wanted my life instead…or even the last year of it. Was my life so devoid of difficulty that I couldn’t relate? Or was my life so “pleasantly perfect” that I wasn’t able to comprehend, counsel, or console my friend.
What was my last year like?? My mother in law passed away from complications stemming from diabetes, she had suffered a long time…kidney transplants amputations of body parts, loss of eyesight, seeping wounds that would never fully heal. For the last 2 years she had something called “shingles” on her side. It was often hard to watch her suffer, it was painful for her to endure. Did my friend want her life? With all of her obvious discomfort and loss of quality of life…she never complained.
My brother-in-law Jared, age 37 died a few months ago of tongue Cancer. He left behind a loving wife and 4 young children. The cancer was brutal…for nearly the last year of his life he couldn’t eat or even swallow. The treatments for his cancer were or seemed barbaric and they didn’t help. It wouldn’t go away. He just kept shrinking away until finally his body had nothing left to keep it going. Jared was not one to complain - I remember only once him saying to me that “cancer was a cruel way to die.” Does my complaining friend want his life?
If my friend had lived only as long as my brother in law - he would have died and stopped complaining over twenty years ago.
My own father was just told that one of his kidney’s has several cancerous growths on it and needs to come out. He’s not so young anymore - losing a kidney can be a hard surgery. My dad is not complaining about it…”what good would that do” he says, “it’s just part of life.” Rather his thought process is - “I am glad the Doctor took a close look at my blood work that was done when I got my pacemaker… it was because of his attention to a small detail that they were able to discover I had this cancer. Had it gone undetected for another few months it would have spread throughout my body and been much worse…even fatal. As it is, I’ll just be losing a kidney.”
Life does and will continue to come at us hard and fast. Life is not fair, nor is it unfair…life just is. It is a great and grand experiment and experience that helps us better understand ourselves and hopefully helps us discover our capacity to be our best selves. Or at least it can if we approach it with a right mind set.
Some people might seem to have it easier than we do, some to have it more difficult. In the end - who can say? All we really seem to have is a choice to make about how we will respond to the experience of life…we can respond with bitterness and blame…or we can respond with benevolence and a sense of becoming.
My life and my happiness is not the result of favored circumstance, but of a determined choosing and deliberate and sustained effort. This sustained pattern of thinking is or can become a mental mindset. My uncle Bob pours concrete for living - he’s nearly 70, looks 50, and I haven’t seen a twenty year old that’s able to keep up with him, in fact no one seems to be able to keep up with him…he works so hard and get’s so much done -it’s like he’s two people … It’s like he’s twins.
Make it a Great Day - Just by saying that it is!
Let’s Make it a Wonderful Day - Let’s Be Twins
Kirk Out
PS - Special Holiday Specials & Bulk Pricing on my books at www.morebetterbooks.com
