28 December 2016

It's a Beautiful Day

Sometimes when I'm trying to think of what to write about, I just open up my eyes and ears and look for something that's already a part of my life.  Sometimes it's a newspaper article or advertisement, sometimes it's a book that I'm reading, sometimes it's the memory of something that I saw happen yesterday or a few days ago.

Today, it was pretty easy--the song "Beautiful Sunday" was playing on my computer when I sat down.  "Birds are singing/here by my side/let's take the car and/let's go for a ride"--nice lyrics for any time.  It's not Sunday right now, but who cares?  Every day is quite simply a beautiful day.  Carole King also had a song called "Beautiful" that starts out "You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face. . . . you're beautiful as you feel."

So much of our lives have to do with our own decisions concerning how we see the world.  If we wake up and see the day before us as drudgery, guess how we're going to approach that day, and guess how we're going to feel?  On the other hand, if we wake up and realize that we have a whole day of miraculous things like flowers and children and birds singing and the chance to learn more about our chosen careers, then guess what that day's going to be like?

Both kinds of days, of course, are affected by other people and their actions.  On the day full of drudgery, it's of course possible that a good friend or co-worker is going to lift our spirits.  And on the beautiful day, it's possible that someone's going to try to bring us down.  That's why in the former case, the lyrics to so many songs talk about the world being beautiful "because you're here by my side"; it's as if the world couldn't be a beautiful place without another person there to validate it for us.  Even the song that started this train of thought shows that tendency:  "When you say that you love me/It's a beautiful day."

But if we make the decision to look for the beauty in each day, there's no way that anyone else should be able to take it away from us.  Even if someone does try, we have the ability to reject those attempts and keep our day positive.  We do have the power to decide how we see things, and if we work to develop that power, then no one else will be able to change that decision.


The fact is, it is a beautiful day.  There's no difference between this day and any other day that we've seen as beautiful except our own personal situations today--it's exactly the same world as it was when we saw it as exceptional.  So make the choice today, tomorrow, and the next day--see the world for what it is, not for how it's reflecting our feelings, and then our feelings will start to reflect the beauty of the world, rather than the other way around.



 Quotations on today from Living Life Fully



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