September 10, 2025
If there is one thing that I wish I’d truly known,
understood, and taken to heart earlier in my life it is this: attitude is everything.
How we, as humans, react to the things that happen
around us and to us is inexorably tied to how we fare, emotionally and
spiritually on our life’s journey.
One of my favorite sayings is that “life is 5 per cent
what happens to me and 95 percent how I deal with it.” Friends, truer words
were never penned. I say that in full awareness that they were not my words,
first. They belong to that amazingly prolific writer, Anonymous.
Who among us can precisely judge the value of holding
fast to gratitude, a positive outlook, and a great sense of humor? This is not
to say that there will not be days when we’re sad, or grieving, when we’re in
pain, or depressed. From time to time, we will experience all those emotions. I
would even argue that you need to taste of the bitter fruits that life can hand
us in order to truly appreciate the sweet.
Please, friends, notice that I used the word “taste”.
I’m careful of the words I choose, because words are very powerful. Taste is a
world away from gorge. Taste implies, at least to my mind, a subtle extension of
the tongue, the gastronomic equivalent of sticking one’s toes in the water.
I have been a person who knew bitterness and my
reality as a young married woman was really very harsh. I know what it is to be
in want, and I know what it is to feel abandoned of all hope. It feels ugly
inside. Ugly and dark and utterly scary and alone.
I am no longer that woman. And when I see others who
are trudging through their lives, exuding the dark clouds that used to live
deep inside my soul, I feel such sadness, and such ache for them. It doesn’t
have to be that way. In every book I’ve written, and at the base of almost all
of my essays, is the message that how one feels is a choice. How one reacts to
the inevitable hard times, is a choice. And one is where one is as a direct
result of all the choices one has made to that point in their life.
As I always have said, your choice basically is
between saying “Good morning, God!” or “Good God, it’s morning!” It’s all up to
you.
Of course, being transformed from one who is
miserable and bitter to one who can embrace the good and receive the joy just
waiting to be had isn’t something you can do alone. But it will come if you
make the choice and ask for help. I can tell you that when I made that choice
and asked for help, it was a holy and humbling experience. It took me a bit
time to understand that the absence of darkness within me was real.
In 1776, Thomas Payne began his famous pamphlet series
with the sentence: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” That sentiment is one that seems to be in
vogue once more. As we look back over the years between then and now, we
understand that there have been many occasions when that sentiment has been
felt.
There are times when it takes determination and not a
little audacity to find the positive in life. But if you can, you will find,
that the colors are brighter and the air is sweeter than you knew it could ever
be. If you can hold onto the positive, and a good sense of humor, there will be
peace within you, and you will find the ability to take the next breath, and
then the next one after that.
No, not alone. Never alone. But it does start with a
decision, and that decision is all yours.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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