Make The Most Of Life

I was driving in the car the other day with a friend and we were talking about the power of actively looking for something in your life. Like, basically, how what you see is what you find. As we were driving down Pico in Santa Monica, I suggested that we look for things that would suggest that our knowing each other was about to come to an end.

I saw words like “Over”, “Exit”, “Mad” and “Stop”.

It was just a game of course, but the game was powerful. It was designed to show both of us that no matter what evidence we go looking for, we will find it. And in this case, in just driving a few blocks, we had enough “evidence” from the world that if we chose to see it, we were “over” we should “exit” knowing each other, we’re obviously “mad” and we should “stop”.

Is this actually true? Of course not – this person and I are very close. But the point is, you will FIND what you go looking for.

So, if you are looking for reasons why you aren’t enough – you’ll most likely find them. If you look for reasons why you should quit – there are plenty of them there. If you look for reasons why it’s not working out – yup, you guessed it – that’s there, too. But, just because you find the evidence, this doesn’t mean it’s actually true. It just means you found something “out there” that, based on the meaning that you are giving events and circumstances, correlates with something you are looking for. The power here is that the MEANING we give the events of our lives is what controls the outcome – far greater than circumstance.

If I go back to that game that I was playing with my friend, if the “meaning” we were looking for were reasons to no longer hang out, and if we looked for evidence out in the world, we would surely find it. But if we looked for evidence about why we are great friends or why we will know each other most likely for the rest of our lives, we’ll find that, too.

This gets back to the age-old adage – seek and ye shall find. So, if that is true, we better be damned careful what we are looking for. At our core, all of us are beautiful, perfect, infinite and Loving Souls. Wrapped around that amazing Soul is a bunch of stories and meanings that we have created – consciously or unconsciously – over time. And when we make things mean a certain thing, we will surely find it.

If we believe that relationships = pain, we’ll find it. If we think men or women = assholes, we’ll find it. If we think that no one loves us, we’ll find it. If we think that every problem is an opportunity to grow, we’ll find it. If we think that a delay is not a denial, we’ll find it. If we think that we are more powerful than our circumstances, we’ll find it. If we think that The Uni-verse provides in perfect time, we’ll find it.

This isn’t to say that if you think positive, it will all work out. Positive thinking is 1/3 of the equation. There is good reason for negative and neutral thinking, too. I’m not talking about being a Pollyanna and thinking that everything is fine. Sometimes we have crisis in our lives – but the MEANING we GIVE the crisis is everything. Is this a breakdown or a breakthrough? Shit happens, but it’s what you do about it that matters. Instead of reacting, let us respond. Responsibility is the ability to respond. This means that we have the power to choose to respond in an empowered way to our circumstances, rather than just look for reasons why we are wrong, why we are not good enough or why we should quit. If you look for problems, you’ll find problems; but if you look for GRACE – you’ll see that Grace walks with you at every step!

By: Mastin Kipp

Tags: Effective Coping Skills, Faith, Optimism., Positive Attitude, self confidence, Stress Management, Success

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Self Esteem, Stress Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.