Heart Set on....

Good Morning My Confidants

What a lovely morning.

Yes, it's already 84° out, but there's a lovely breeze, it's coming to the door, it feels nice. And then there's my wind chimes. My wonderful wind chimes. And of course the birds. And my coffee.

For a few years there I woke up and dread every morning. And then the day only got worse. I started it with dread and ended it with far worse than dread. Thank goodness even when things were really bad, I was constantly looking for a silver lining. Constantly trying to find something good about the day. I don't know how I would have made it without doing that.

And in the last two years, one of the major things that gave me so much dread has changed. I'm still around to appreciate it.

It's really all in the way I chose to look at life.

There's something I'm really seeing in social media. Far more than I see out there in the "real world." Because you know, unless one has a job like a toll booth operator or a ticket taker or a teacher or a cashier, we only come into contact with so many people today. And social media we can come into contact with hundreds of people.....

And what I'm saying is the negativity. So much negativity. And they will argue they're not being negative at all, that they're being realistic. And it's healthy to be realistic.

It's not. It's not healthy at all.

Scientific studies have been done on the health of positive people versus negative people. Positive people regularly live longer, have better immune systems, and even do better when faced with something like cancer. I had a friend who had a rare type of cancer that only a tiny percent of people survive. He chose to lie to everybody tell everybody that he had a type of cancer that only a tiny percentage of people die. He told EVERYONE. I'm sure he made himself believe it.

He's alive today and it was over 20 years ago that he faced this disease.

Right now I'm really seeing the negativity on social media groups that are dedicated to hobbies. A place where you would think that people would be celebrating. But nope. They're bitching. They're bitching that the quality isn't good enough. They're bitching about the prices. They're bitching that they got ripped off by a seller, and they explain their story, and you wonder how in the world they fell for it.

I see a lot of this in the collecting of dolls.

Did you know that when Barbie came out in 1959, she only cost $3.00? So, people really complain about the rising cost of Barbie. They're really inexpensive ones, people complain about her quality.

However, taking into account for inflation, the $3.00 Barbie from 1959 would cost over $32.00 today. Yup

You know, we all have things that we want higher quality on. I can't abide Folgers or Maxwell House coffee. I will spend $20 on a little bag of coffee to ensure that it's absolutely delicious and doesn't even need any cream or sweetener.

So, I can appreciate how a connoisseur might not be happy about certain things concerning Mattel.

What I get so damned tired about is all the negativity. Over at the coffee Facebook pages, I don't make a post every day complaining about how bad I think Folgers is. I don't whine about how I think Starbucks taste burnt, because there's a lot of people on those pages that love Starbucks. And you all are certainly teaching me about yucking somebody else's yum, and bless you for that.

Complaining is negative. It's a downer. Who wants to hear people bitching all the time? I can't help but wonder if these people, and I don't know one way or the other, bitch and complain about everything all the time. I wonder sometimes what living with these people is like. I wonder how many of them are single because nobody wants to live with them.

It's the same with so many things. Have you heard of MiniVerse? There are so many people who love them, and then there's those people who moan that a flower doesn't look realistic enough.

Or the MCU movies. There's those people who enjoy every one of them, although some of them less, some of them more, than others. And then there's the people who try and blacklist them for some reason. Review bomb them. Why?

Whine whine whine whine whine.

Why do it? What does it solve?

Is complaining about the new Barbie dolls making Mattel suddenly make "better" dolls? Is it hurting Mattel's pocketbook? They made a billion and a half dollars last year with their movie and sales on their toys have SOARED. Guess how much they care about the bitching?

I'll give you a hint. They don't.

It's like that phrase my Mama used to say to me when I was going up; "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. Nobody wants to hear it."

And most of us avoid those people who do sit around and bitch all the time.

Can I just scroll past posts that are people bitching and whining? I can. But even though I can't read a book in four or five hours, I still read pretty darn fast. And as I scroll by, I can't help but read when people complain.

I guess some people just treat life differently.

Some people aren't happy unless they're complaining about something.

I discovered that when I was in my deepest depression, sitting around in the dark watching depressing movies did nothing to help me. Nothing at all. Some of it was clinical depression. I get that. But sitting around in the dark watching depressing movies does nothing to help. That's what I did my 365 Days of Silver linings journal. Even though there were days I could barely crawl my way out of bed, I would find SOMETHING smile about.

It saved my life.

Today I get up every morning, I grind my coffee beans and make a pot of coffee (if Noah hasn't done it already and he usually does), I sit on the front porch, I don't complain about the rising temperature, I listen to the beautiful birds and my wind chimes, I read a daily reader with a positive message, I cuddle with my dogs, and I sit and gaze at my beautiful dolls.....and it makes me really happy.

Sometimes I'm in utter all of just how content I am, especially after those dark dark days. And I think the Universe that helped me find the silver linings on those dark dark days.

As the Four Noble Truths say, life is suffering. But our true suffering comes and how we deal with a bad things that life gives us. Do we wallow around in it, complaining and bitching about the suffering? Or do we find something to smile about.

Because life is a gift.

Because the belief in a Heavenly reward after we close our eyes the final time is just that. A belief. There's absolutely no proof otherwise. It is possible that when we close our eyes.....that's it.

I like to think otherwise. I like to think that I'm going to be suddenly reunited with all my beloved dogs the beloved friends who passed before me. That brings a big smile to my face.

But the thought that I will bring a smile to someone else's face when they think about me when I'm gone....wow. That really makes me happy.

I want to leave this world a better place than I found it.

You know, it just occurred to me, that sitting here writing this essay about bitching could be considered bitching.

Oh my gosh that's making me laugh!

So, enough bitching then.

I'm going to think about something to smile about.

Namasté,

BG "Gentle Ben" Thomas