From my PerspectiveL: The Blessings of What 2020 Has Taught Me

It’s been a year, hasn’t it? It’s been good. It’s been bad. It’s been difficult. It most definitely has NOT been easy. It’s brought sickness, loneliness, anger and depression, in ways we’ve not ever experienced before.

But, it’s brought hope, too, in its own way. Hope for things to be different.

It’s brought awareness. Awareness in a way that we can’t deny, about the way we’ve lived, as people, as a community, as families and as individuals.

There are those who have made it through 2020, and those who, for whatever reason, are no longer with us.

We’ve learned who our friends really are, and we’ve learned who only cares if we think and believe what they do.

We’ve been isolated, set free, and isolated again.

We’ve been divided, and some are making conscious efforts to come back together for the good of a town, city, state, the economy, and our souls.

We’ve learned about what’s important to us, and we’ve learned what isn’t.

Personally, I’ve cried a lot more and lately, gotten more in tune with me. I’ve struggled, mentally, physically, financially, professionally and emotionally. I’ve felt sorry for myself and for others. I’ve been angry with myself, with things and people around me, and at situations I can’t control.

Let that last sentence sink in. “I’ve been angry at situations I can’t control.” How many of us have? How many of us have been so frustrated over what we can’t control that we’ve completely forgotten what we can control?

Here are the things I can control: I can control how I react/respond to anything and everything around me. I can control what I think about any given situation or subject. I can control how I feel about any topic, sensitive or otherwise, and I can control what I choose to say (written or in person) to any other person.

Notice a theme? In this case, it’s the “I.” Not how “they” react, think, feel or say. The only thing any of us can control is the “I” part of any of it.

I’ve had a lot go on in the last week that left me so angry, so sad, so frustrated. Holidays in general are a tough time for me because of my thoughts and reactions surrounding them. Additionally, I had a frustrated customer, our freezer died, an unexpected bill showed up in the mail, I feel like I’m losing an important part of what’s grounded me in Lincoln and I miss my mom, my kids, and my brother and his family – none of whom I’ll get to see this Christmas or anytime soon, it would appear. Yes, these things are all difficult, and with any one of them alone, I could have reacted and dealt differently. But all at once, I didn’t. It was like this snowball that just kept getting bigger and bigger. I reacted badly. I can’t control any of those things.

What I can control is what I choose to do about it from this moment forward.

I was recently chatting with someone who has had a cancer diagnosis, several procedures, and who would have every reason to react differently to their situation than they chose to. They chose, and choose every day, to be grateful – for that day, for another day with their family, for another day to be in business, for just another day. They choose to see the blessing of each day because they know first-hand – on a different level than those of us not faced with a life-threatening illness – what a true blessing another day is. The truth is any of us, including me, could not be here tomorrow. It shouldn’t take an illness or disease to make us realize this.

I was blessed to talk to this person in the middle of my crappy week. Their words were a blessing and a reminder. Maybe I was just open enough and ready to receive the message. I’m in control of how those words affect me, what I think about them and the change I’ll make because of the words this person spoke. I get to change the way I feel about what happens in my life – and today, I get to appreciate the blessing of another day with those I love, things I love to do, and the time to breathe.

How I choose to look at this blessing is all mine. How you choose to see your blessings is all yours. So I’ll leave you with this for the week: how will you choose to see the blessing of another day?