A song has recently piqued my interest lately. It’s called “Penny to my name”, by Eva Cassidy. To listen to it, it’s not a particularly uplifting song by any means, and it’s flat, melancholy chords don’t do anything to brighten your day. It does however have significance in several ways when it comes to considering about your lot in life, where you are right now and where you want to go. How do I mean by that? Let’s take one excerpt:
Strangers say this mountain here, is beautiful beyond compare.
But it’s just a dumb old mountain, I see it every day.
If I could the sunset skies over fields of green or ocean-tides,
City skyline in the night, I’ll be dancing to til the dawn.
So what? It’s a perfect example of being surrounded by beauty that you just don’t see any more, and don’t appreciate because it’s what you’ve come to expect your life to look like.
If you take a little moment, I know you’re probably busy, but just a little one, and look around you. You’ll maybe see what you have in your life to be thankful for. Things that people who don’t have it every day are probably wishing they had. It may be difficult to do at first, but those things have got to be there, since if those things that are beautiful weren’t actually there, would you be there?
Learning to actively and habitually ask yourself questions that cause you to consider what you have in your life to be thankful for, promotes you feeling fundamentally appreciative and blessed.
Doing this keeps your focus in the positive, and this is good for you since what you focus on ultimately determines how you feel at any given point in time. Just try it. Focus briefly on something that’s upset you in the last week or so. Expand on it in your mind and let it take the reigns. You may find your posture shrinks, your outlook get’s at least a little duller and your feeling of discontentment grows. Pull yourself back out and think of something that has really lifted you today or recently. Think of the people involved, your connection with them, what brought you to that point and how fortunate you are to experience it. What parts of you allowed that experience to come into being? It’s all good… you start probably smiling, your posture straightens up, and you’re looking ahead and upwards with confidence. That’s the power of focus…
So, next time you start focusing on the crap that’s around you, or people you’re with start a conversation about it, stop, interrupt that pattern and focus on the great things that are setting you up right now for where you are in your life today.
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