Focus on the Good

This is what I choose to focus on today, despite it often being a difficult task. In a society completely consumed by attempts to fulfill it's feelings of emptiness that it indulges repeatedly in self-destructive behaviors, it is hard sometimes to see beauty in your surroundings. Sometimes I wonder if the world continues to grow more ugly by the decade, or if I am finally old enough to see the world the way it is. When you're an adolescent, the world looks like a celebrity in People Magazine. It looks like one of those shots a photographer captured where a Kardashian is stuffing her face with pizza, or Mila Kunis left the house without makeup. You think to yourself, "Whoa they look so rough,,,, that's not really how wrinkly and saggy they are, right?" Your image of a flawless goddess has substantially wavered. As you get older, you see more celebrities without makeup, losing their abs, becoming more silicone than flesh, caught cheating, being arrested for DUIs, and before you know it, you see the world for what it really is. A gigantic facade and a hot, hot mess (and in serious need of it's Savior). And it feels tragic.

And yet, if you look really closely, there is always more to it than that. Yes, we do see celebrities making poor life choices. We get stabbed in the back by best friends, we don't get into the college campus that is plastered all over our bedroom wall, we don't get the job or spot on the team we deserve due to "politics", we get blamed for someone else's mistake. But, there are other things we see. We see a dad get a tattoo of his daughter's hearing aid on his head so that she doesn't feel self-conscious from the lingering stares. We see men who dress up as superheros as they clean the windows at Children's Hospital. We see young men and women sacrifice their lives every day to protect our country. We see couples opting to adopt a child with a disability, strangers shoveling each other's sidewalks and driveways, college students passing out free hot dogs at homecoming, churches washing cars for free, choirs and dance troops performing at nursing homes. As a teacher, I can struggle to feel like my job is worth the time it devours, yet teachers get to see so many little acts of kindness and tiny glimpses of how beautiful the world is: students sharing their personal supplies, a friend passing up a snack to his classmate because he mostly eats at school and rarely at home, my barely verbal students comforting each other when their table-mate is in distress, teachers working in their classrooms until the building closes so their students not only learn what they need to know, but learn it the fun way. Teachers who do not make enough money but spend their hard-earned wages on supplies for children that will never earn them Child Tax Credit. I see teachers comforting parents who feel hopeless, reminding single parents that they are not their child's only advocate, and working with the parents who seem like monsters, but deep down they feel that ugliness is the only way to ensure their child gets what they deserve, because that's the only way they know.

I see beauty in my marriage. I see my husband working at a job that does not always excite him or stimulate his mind, but it provides for us (something my job as an educator does not.) I see a man who is the Webster's Dictionary definition of "introvert" lead our church in worship, and let me drag him out of the house. He cleans snow off my car, opens every door for me, carries the heavy groceries up flights of stairs, watches more chick flicks than I'm positive he cares to, listens to me whine and complain, offers advice when I need it, and gives me his shoulder when advice can't help. A young man in today's society that is willing to pass up the typical wild, all-about-me lifestyle most people in their twenties live, is rare. Yet, he made that sacrifice to be devoted to one person. Forever. In sickness and health, for richer or poorer,for better or worse. 

And what often happens when we choose to focus on the good, or witness that random act of kindness, is that we are compelled to pay it forward. As Gandhi pointed out, we wish to be the change, or the good, we want to see in the world. And I would like to think that for every time I was inspired to go out of my way, the way a stranger did for me, I inspired someone else. A stranger gave me their turn on the treadmill while in line at the gym, so I gave a stranger my parking space at the grocery store, and hopefully the trail continues. When a world is as gloomy as ours can be, it's the little things, those random acts of kindness, those moments we choose to see the good, to be the good,to be the change, that can shine so bright and change everything for a person, for a stranger, without us even realizing.

So yeah, there are about a million-and-one reasons to be a grouch toward the world. And a lot of the time, you probably have a right to be. But if you have one, teeny tiny reason to smile, GRAB A HOLD. Be thankful for it. Thank God for it. Share it if you can. It's people like that who make a broken world seem a little less broken. It's people like that who inspire, and do the world a favor without even trying. Be a living example. Every day. Starting today, choose to focus on the good.