I have used, and heard, the phrase "well look at the bright side" more times then I can count. I took a long five day weekend this week and spent time with my good friend Geo and a couple other buddies who I have not spent much time with in this past year. I would not really call this particular group of buddies the most energetic boys outside of their sport of hockey, but their minds work a lot like mine in the way we try to see the world.
We like to see the good laid out in the path before us along our journey's. With most all of my friends I get accused of being "the second coming of Jesus" due to my Christian outlook on life and my involvement with my church. I love my Lord but I also believe it is not the Christian part of my life that completely makes me who I am. It is the pieces of my heart and soul that keep my brain in check when it comes to seeing the good in others. Let me tell you, there is a lot of good out there. A lot more good than there is bad. It is human nature that has the population of the world believing there is more bad than there is good.
I sometimes blog about Life's Beautiful Moments. Sometimes really is not enough and doesn't capture all the beautiful moments in life that I witness. I focus on the good in life, perhaps because of the personal tragedies I have faced in the past. We all have them, and we all handle them very different from each other. I decided years ago, when I moved from Sioux City IA to Boston MA, that I needed a more refreshing outlook on life. Not as a means to escape the memories of loved ones gone. Not as a means to forget about the abuse inflicted upon me as a child. No, it was not to forget my past. It may have been to forgive the tragic moments of my past, but not to forget them.
Taking a one day road trip this past week with my buddies, Geo, Matty, and Stuey was meant to be just a good old time with the boys. We did indeed have an excellent time tripping to the Cape. It is unexplainable to describe the open air freedom feeling of riding a motorcycle with a destination to relaxation so I won't even begin to describe it. Once we hit our destination we all knew, and looked forward to, just bumming around for the day until we decided it was time to head back to Boston.
We relaxed plenty, mostly on the beach just catching up with what each of us have been doing in our daily lives since we last seen each other. None of us tried to out do each other in our lives walk since college. I work in a bookstore, one of the guys plays hockey, one of the guys helps others invest their money, one of them helps business's grow through advertising on the web. We all down played what we do for a living, caring only that we were all doing ok and less about who made more money. Our conversation turned to our happiness, our personal lives beyond a paycheck. Geo had broken up with his girlfriend of three years. Matty was finally engaged to his girlfriend after eight years of serious dating. Stuey was causal dating, as he has been since we first met. I was still seeing Kristy, the girl I have been seeing since my sophomore year of high school. No more details were needed, because we are guys, and direct answers satisfy our direct questions.
Conversations were light and airy, nothing made us churn our brains very hard. Silence was comfortable among us friends. The fresh air felt refreshing, the beauty of life a site to see. All at once the four of us turned our direction to the sounds of laughter coming from about 20 feet away to our left. We watched as a family of four, a mom and a dad with their small children (guessing at ages 3 and 5) played some catch with a nerf ball. The kids just yucking it up, laughing at dad who could not catch the ball before it hit him in the face, or on the arm, or landed just beyond his reach. All smiles, all enjoying their day together as a family. I told my buddies "look at that, that is one of life's beautiful moments."
Being ribbed about my statement of "Life's Beautiful Moments" and explaining to the guys that you can look at life from two different angles, you can see that family bonding 20 feet away and enjoy the happiness they bring to each other, or you can look another 10 feet beyond them and see the young couple arguing over something that is probably so meaningless it will ruin their day. And thus begin our quest for people watching the rest of day, pointing out Life's Beautiful Moments.
The young woman who stopped in front of a young child crying and offering her a hug. The middle aged man who took out a dollar from his wallet to cover the 49 cents the old man in front of him was short on his debt. The old woman sitting on the bench waiting for the bus who smiled big when a teenage boy sat next to her just to offer her a hello. The mom who stopped, picked up some litter and threw it in the trash can, no dout explaining to her two young children what she was doing, and why she did it. Time after time there beautiful life moments one or more of us witnessed and pointed out. It seemed one right after another, acts of kindness creating beautiful moments that so many people over look, were occurring.
Our day was full of looking on the bright side of life from the moment we hit the beach to the moment we rounded the corner and turned into my neighborhood, riding up to the driveway of my house. As we stopped and got off our bikes we heard laughter. We all turned our attention to the second house east of my house. My nieces were on the front porch of our neighbors, giggling at Mr. Mark, who was entertaining them by wearing one of their play tiara's, pretending he too was a princess.
What I didn't explain to my buddies that day was how I came to see more of life's beautiful moments and less of the tragedies. You see, beautiful moments come from the heart. Whether you are making them or witnessing them, it is done through the heart. They are not something you have to think about to feel, give, or receive. Everyone of them is just a heart beat away. When you think about life with your brain it is wired by human nature, which wants us to witness the bad times and dwell on what isn't. When you feel life through your heart it is wired by God, and He wants us to be good, do good, see good, feel good. He wants us to look at life as it is designed to be. Full of goodness, kindness, love. Take the tragedies you face in your journey on earth and find the beauty it has left behind you.
As you walk through life you will find that there are both good and evil. Hand in hand along your journey in life you will witness both of life's ugly moments and life's beautiful moments. When you feel despair in your life I hope you realize you are using your brain to take each step when in fact you should be using your heart. It is something I have trained myself to do and although I still run into moments of pure hatred, there are by far more beautiful moments that I witness.
My little angel in heaven, Amazing Gracie, taught me how big our hearts really are. She told me on several occasions that our hearts are capable of holding more love then we can ever imagine. Gracie told me that while the brain is looked at as the organ most under used at 10%, it is the heart really, that is never used to it's full capacity. That we will only ever be capable of achieving 100% of the use of our brain even though we rarely use over 10% of it. However, the heart is not capable of filling up with all the love we think it can. We will never use 100% of our heart because when it hits 100% there is always more love to shove inside of it.
"It's like how when you eat so much food that your tummy is so full you can not even take one more bite. But your daddy says 'hey lets go get an ice cream treat' and you know you can fit all that yummy in your full tummy. So you just eat ice cream and it melts on its way down and fits into all those spaces between the food you just thought filled you all up."
Yes, Amazing Gracie, you are correct. Fill your heart up with so much love from so many different people and never be afraid to add more love. Perhaps that is what the saying "melts my heart" is about after all. You will find that in life there will be moments that break your heart. You will also find that if you allow yourself to love just a little more, even if you think you cannot love any more, that love will seep into the cracks of the times your heart was broken and fill up with more love then you thought it was capable of holding.
Life's Beautiful Moments comes from living through your heart. I encourage you to work on unlocking that life, and train yourself to live life to its fullest through the that organ and give your mind a rest. Use your brain as a means of financial gain, use your heart as a means of happiness. Allow yourself the rewards that come from filling up your heart with more love then you ever though possible. Go ahead, try and prove Gracie wrong by trying to fill your heart full until it holds no more love. I double dog dare you.
