One day, my niece asked me this question:
"Suppose a couple has driven their car out on one of those desolate roads in the middle of nowhere. They come to a four-way intersection and stop in the middle of the road.
What happens next?
Possibilities:
1. They contemplate a moment and say, "This is an adventure, let's go that way. One points, and they laughingly go on their way.
2. From out of the blue, another vehicle crashes into them.
3. A devil appears and says he will give them their heart's desire (Maybe a recording contract), but in return, they must promise to give him their soul.
4. They continue straight ahead in the direction they were going without much thought about it. They were only stopping for a breather.
5. Can you think of another?
I'm thinking this is a road trip across the US, so there are many choices along the way.
If you are a writer, you might want angst like the crash. Or you might have been conditioned to expect the worst.
You might be a person who thinks they must pay or suffer to get what they want.
You might be a person who takes a chance, or one who doesn't.
You might be part of a couple that gives in without expressing your opinion. Or you might be a couple who will argue endlessly and never come to an agreement. One person might give in to the other, then fume for the next 50 miles.
All this came up for me from this picture from an old blog, November 27, 2023
This picture struck me. It's of our yard, a Japanese maple, a fig tree, a St John's Wort. (The one with red berries.) Yet where did our eyes go? To that one little dead leaf up high in the fig tree. That's the way with people. We can't help it, we are built to find the broken, the moving, the different. It has survival value.
It's the way our mind works.
"My mind is boggled." I wrote on that 2023 post. "I'm frustrated, disenchanted, disappointed, and when I tell my daughter of this, she says that others feel the same way.
"After all my grumbling, complaining, and ineptitude, I couldn't stand the News. And, as I like to keep a novel going most of the time, I was tired of trudging through pain, anguish, and grief to get to the happy ending. I was tired of movies that made me sad and publishers that want tension between lovers and angst in life because, without it, they have no story.
"I remembered a time when we were proud to be Americans, and when GI Joe was a good guy."
That gripe is two years old. That night, divine guidance led me to Louise Hay's book You Can Heal Your Life.
She speaks of Affirmations. Well, Affirmations and I have a long history. I remember getting assignments to write an affirmation 100 times before bed.
That was penance.
I understand that an affirmation is meant to drum a new thought into our heads. (You never change an old thought without replacing it with a new.) But what if you plant the seed and then leave it to grow? A seed has its own internal guidance system, and that is, given the right conditions, like soil, minerals, and water, it will sprout. Love can help. But do not dig it up to see if it sprouted. (As with repeatedly writing the affirmation which is saying you don't believe it will happen unless you drum it into The Source.)
Trust that the seed will grow.
Think of affirmations this way: Every thought is an affirmation. (I know we have unwanted thoughts; don't beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself. We have a screwy brain. Yep, there are dead leaves, for heaven's sake climb up there and pluck them out, or wait, they will fall.
And remember, every moment is new. If we choose to believe we are helpless victims and that all is hopeless, the Universe will support that belief.
Every cell in our body responds to every single thought we think and every word we speak. Continuous modes of thinking and speaking produce body behaviors, postures, and ease or dis-ease.
Last week, I suggested that we get happy. And I was using Joseph McClendon III's definition of happiness:
"Happiness is a mental and emotional state of being where your internal focus is optimistic and the body produces positive energy."
It doesn't address Ha ha happy. It doesn't say "Just think happy thoughts." It doesn't say that sometimes we need friction to get us motivated and off our butts. (or buts.)
Neither does it ignore that we read, hear, or see dire things. And we also see beautiful things. It means having the mental and physical capacity to carry us through.
To quote McClendon:
"Inside you is a warrior ready to conquer the world.
"You were wired for happiness, adventure, and abundance. Those attributes were embedded into your soul from birth. You didn't enter the world with a whimper. You entered it bold and defiant!"
Now sit up straight, hold your head up, look straight ahead, and put a big, stupid grin on your face.
Do you feel better? 
