Learning

I don't want to get into specifics but this post is about negative thoughts. Little background info, I'm at a really exciting place in my life. I've got a very supportive, positive, patient husband. My kids all seem to be in a pretty good place, for the moment. So where does that leave me?

With room to grow, that's where.

And I'm ready, open and willing to learn.

I've always tended to be more skeptical, cynical, hard-nosed, all of the above, however, I'm seeing that all of those qualities served me well when I needed them, but now, I need to be open and teachable. Those old qualities don't serve me anymore.

How incredibly exciting it is when you get to place in your life of openess. Only then will the doors open. And you can practically hear the hinges creaking as those doors swing open! Opportunities arise. Things happen. I look at God as the great trailmaker. When I ask him to mark the trails for me, they never fail to appear. I just have to follow the trail.

But on the other hand, it's so interesting to me how one, just one, negative statement from other people, compound in my mind. What's so interesting is that everything positive that happened in that day, or that week, does not compound. But the negative, it grows a thousand times. And then a thousand times more. Until it stops me.

Dead in my tracks.

So why is it that OTHER people's comments, thoughts, affect me? Even when they're friends and family and clearly love you, and don't mean to rain on your parade, how can that affect me so powerfully?

I think the answer is that I already think these things and am looking for an easy way out so I jump on these same thoughts that I've already had. Defeating myself before I've even tried.

It's good though, that I recognize it, right?

New things are brewing on the horizon.

Later: The english major in me wants to acknowledge that yes, I mixed my metaphors in the last sentence of this post. Coffee brews, horizons...well, they just...brighten! So let it be known.