“There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare.
Something happens in your life. You think it’s bad. So it’s bad.
What is “bad”? That means it hurts your emotions, what you think of it and others, and even what you think of yourself, now and into the future.
Now that same thing could happen to someone else, and they see it as neutral or good.
The difference is in how they see it – how they are processing what happened.
Sure, maybe your hopes and expectations were that the event did NOT happen, so that it happened goes counter to what you wanted. But what if you adjust your expectations? What if you see how the event is opening a new opportunity, or could be a stepping stone to something else that will be good?
What if you just put your happiness ahead of it all and refuse to see it as “bad”?
Theory is easy. Practice is something else.
I remind myself to practice.
Being grateful for the times that didn’t go as expected because those are the ones that have the lessons we didn’t know we needed. You never know which one of those lessons will make your life easier down the road or if that success will make your life harder. Your journey is unique.
When life seems to give you lemons, just make lemonade! Often the things we think are bad can turn out to be very good in the long run. If nothing else we will grow personally as a result of having proper responses and attitudes towards the “bad” thing. If we can’t see the good in a situation then we simply aren’t looking hard enough or in the right places.