Letting the Good In

It's been several months since I wrote in my blog. There have been gaps in my writings before and it's always because I get lazy and stop trying to look for good in life. I get tired of the "theme". I get bored. I get frustrated when things don't come together for me like I want them to and when I want them to. I let myself slip into a negative frame of mind and my life becomes frustrating and mundane. I lose the enchantment and the fascination with the world around me that is evident from my previous writings. But eventually I come back and I start practicing my "look for the good" philosophy again.

One of the areas of my life where I have struggled the most is the area of self-esteem. I often think to myself that there's nobody in my life that appreciates me or "gets" me or values me at all. But then, when someone does come into my life who shows me some appreciation, I don't believe it's real. I assume they're just being polite or just patronizing me for whatever reason.

After I published my book, "Looking For The Good", which is basically a hard copy of this blog, I had a number of people treat me like I was some kind of guru. I even had one person ask me to "autograph" her copy of my book!!! Autograph???? I really hated the attention and I hated being put up on a pedestal. It was lonely up there and I felt very separate from the very people I was trying to reach with my writings. I'm just an ordinary person! It says so right on the back cover of my book! My only reason for putting the book together was to try to help other "ordinary" people to see that they can find happiness even in their "ordinary" lives. There was a certain amount of "celebrity" status that the book brought to me and I hated every bit of it! I hated the praise I got from people. I just couldn't accept it. I didn't think the book was that big of a deal. I knew of a lot of mistakes in it. I couldn't even see the good in my own book or in myself. It was horribly uncomfortable for me and I was very relieved when all the hooplah died down.

It reminds me of another experience I had years ago when I was active in Toastmasters. In Toastmasters, each speech you give is connected to a particular lesson. That night, I had given a speech that required the use of props. I always tried to make my speeches funny and lighthearted. Sometimes people use Toastmasters meetings to practice being "minister" wannabes and their talks can be really heavy and serious. I always liked to lighten things up. My speech for the night was about how bad my cooking was. I still remember the props I used. I had a rubber chicken that I marked up with a black magic marker and I held it up and called it "Blackened Chicken". LOL! Anyway, after the speech was over and I turned the platform back over to the Toastmaster and headed back to my seat, there was the obligatory applause that you always get after a speech. But after that died down, a second round of enthusiastic applause started and everyone was smiling and looking at me. It was a moment when I knew I had been really really good. I was blown away. It was exciting! But on the way home, something happened inside me.

After the meeting, I had several people come up and shake my hand and tell me I should be a professional public speaker. I just laughed it off and said I was glad they enjoyed my speech. Then, as I drove home, these voices in my head started talking to me. " Who do you think you are?" they said. "You made such a fool of yourself showing off in front of those people pretending to be something you're not!" By the time I got home, I was in tears and was embarrassed about the speech. I'm not sure if I ever went back to another Toastmasters meeting again after that. Just like with my book, I just couldn't handle the praise. I couldn't handle being loved. So I pushed it away. I pushed away the very thing that I so longed for; being appreciated and valued.

Yesterday, yet another experience spoke to me. A young girl I know who recently had her best friend die in a boating accident told me that my book is really helping her get through it. She said that when she gets down about things, she pulls out my book and reads some and it makes her feel better. That scared the crap out of me and I quickly changed the subject and then said I had to leave. Again, I couldn't let it in. I couldn't accept the very thing we all need, which is validation.

I wish I could close this post by saying that I have learned to allow love, acceptance and approval into my life but I truly have not. And the longer I go without it, the more painful it is. I'm not even sure if this post even belongs on a blog about looking for the good in life. But it's what I felt the need to write about today. I guess I need to look for the good in myself and allow others to see good in me too. And if someone does try to love me, I hope I can allow them to and not get scared and push them away.

I think that the only way we can have good in our lives is if we let it in. So lets look for the good and then allow it in.

Live and Let Live

Today is the first day of a brand new year! We have a whole new calendar to fill up with wonderful activities and experiences! I personally plan to make this the best year of my life. I intend to have more fun and more new experiences this year than ever. And I plan to laugh more and have more fun and get into just as much trouble as possible. (Fun trouble, of course!) So today I decided to get started right away. I decided that me and Bossy would go hiking since the weather was nice.

I love hiking in the woods because I love nature and I love getting away from the city and from people. But once in a while, there are humans on my hiking trail! I don't like it when they're there but it is, after all, a public trail. So I have to let them stay. Today Bossy and I were enjoying the beauty and the peacefulness of the woods and the lake when suddenly I started hearing loud talking and laughing. I knew we weren't alone any more. The closer the big mouths got to us, the more annoying their loud talking became. Do those people have a hearing problem or something? Why are they talking so damn loud? I wanted to shoosh them but I didn't. Soon enough they were gone and me and Bossy had the woods to ourselves again.

Sometimes when I'm out hiking, I see people jogging throught the woods or I see people walking with headphones on or talking on their cell phone. And I can't help but think to myself that those people are missing so much. The woods are so beautiful. That lake is breathtaking, the wildlife, the whole environment is something I really want to absorb and become one with when I'm out there. I go hiking to get away from cell phones and noise and loud music and being in a hurry. I sometimes even feel sorry for those people who, to me, seem totally oblivious to the beauty they're missing out on because they're not fully present.

But today I thought of a different perspective. When I hike with my dog, I am having a wonderful, wonderful experience. But those people who were talking so loud and laughing as they hiked probably were too!!! They're just having a different experience than what I'm having. They're having the experience THEY came there to have. They're enjoying each other's company. They're laughing with each other and connecting with each other. And they're getting exericse as well. That's what THEY came to the trail for. And I realized....that's OK. And I thought to myself how wonderful it is that the planet we live on is so accommodating to all of us and all our different desires and needs. And it also occurred to me that even I have a different experience every time I go hiking, even though I often hike the very same trail.

It's been said that you can never step into the same river twice. That's because the river is always swirling and shifting and changing. My hiking trails are like that too. In fact, the whole planet, the whole universe is like that. OK, I'll say it, LIFE is like that! And so I finally am OK with those humans being on my trail. And I'm OK with them having a different experience on my trail than I'm having. And I appreciate how that we're all unique individuals having our own special unique life that only we can live. So I will live and let live, as the song goes. And that's good! Look for the good! :)

Here's a slide show of my hiking trip today. First of many for 2011. Your coments are welcome. Click the word comment below. I'd love to hear from ya!