I’m not sure if I am the only one who is like this but I love analogies and symbolism. The picture of a dark road that is in front of you just really spoke to me when I saw it today. It isn’t threatening in itself but knowing that the journey looks bleek is enough to dampen your spirit. The road of life is sweetest when sunny, bright, cheerful, and the wildlife animals singing to you as you walk along. Today I want to talk about how we continue down this road when things start to get darker and foreboding.
When life is easy it is so amusing to me that people just take it for granted. I have had the fortunate opportunity to travel around the world to places like war torn Iraq when I was younger. These experiences have altered the way that I perceive the world around me. I’m able to adjust my thinking when I start to think that life is difficult. Yeah it might suck that I won’t be able to pay one of my bills on time this month. HOWEVER – I didn’t have to worry about my neighbor coming over with his AK to threaten my family or steal my stuff because he can. I don’t have to worry about things like clean water or HAVING the access to health care. Being able to afford it is totally something different right? In America right now you can drive down the road and usually within 30 minutes you will be able to stop somewhere and purchase anything and everything you’d really need to survive. Bottled water, food, and even health care items. A convenience store which used to have only a few essential items now in this day and age has everything you’d really need. So what is really so difficult? Let me explain.
This picture to me is different. You have to look at the edges slowly so that you can deconstruct the darkness and see the picture differently. Let me show you how I would do it with a couple of personal examples:
Example 1/Dark Road mentality: “I’m a shitty dad and I’m not doing enough for my kid”
Example 1/Better Picture: “Are you doing everything you can? Yes. Are you trying to learn and grow along with your kiddo? Yes. Do you show her love, support, kindness, caring? Yes. Do you take the time to parent, teach, guide, and explain consequences of the world both good and bad? Sure do.”
Good. Now shut up because you’re doing just fine. Keep going man, everyday!
Example 2/Dark Road mentality: “I’m letting someone down because of my physical/mental/emotional issues”
Example 2/Better Picture: “Man it sucks to let people down. I know that that you think the world depends on you but can I tell you a secret? Yeah? It doesn’t. As long as you continue to try to bring positivity, happiness, a healthy lifestyle, charity, and love into the world man you are doing something good.
See how you can reframe your mental positioning and your outlook on the road of life just by looking at the picture a bit differently? I know it is difficult but with practice it gets easier I promise.
Feel free to share how this might have helped you, if at all. But down below I am going to show you how the road looks now. Different right? Click the picture for a little bit of happy today. <3
