Monty says, Always Look On The Bright Side

AVOID DISASTERS!

Well, that is one way to always look on the bright side of life.
Who’s world isn’t rosier with no disasters sneaking around?

They’re like burrs that stick to you when you walk. 
Nasty things.
Hard to always look on the bright side with them around.

If we get from the universe what we put out there, then dodging disasters is going to cause what?….. Disaster!

Are we obsessing about what might’ve been?
When there wasn’t a has been?

So what’s on our minds? Calamity. Flood. Famine, Donner and Blixen.
And that’s what’s going out there. So that’s what we get back.
You DON’T want this back.

Monty Python says, Always look on the bright side!

Happy Gets You Happiness!

If we concentrated on the good, we’d be getting back only good and happiness. 
BECAUSE that’s what we were concentrating on……What we think, comes back around.

Everyone read The Secret. I’m just understanding it now.
This is what we were taught all along: “you reap what you sow”.

In my life, I noticed that a high income didn’t necessarily make you happy……..
Poverty didn’t do that either.

I saw far more happy people who were happy AND poor.

Each one would like to own a really flashy car or a big, fancy house, but they’re not UN-happy because they don’t have them.

They had no money. What they did have was home-grown vegetables. They bartered for flour, butter, and meat.

They were joyful people! They didn’t know they were poor.

There were people on small islands with a beach for their yard (beachfront property).

They cooked outside every night (had barbecue) and didn’t work either, (were retired).

They slept well at night, (Sealy mattress) with the sound of the waves nearby. (Calm app)

This is what westerners want! It’s what we’re striving for!…..We can do this!

After making the acquaintance of these people, I just couldn’t understand the Western world anymore! What were we chasing?

We wanted the American Dream but ended up with dumplings.

What did we have?

Mortgages. A job to pay for our debts. Without the debts, we wouldn’t need the job.
Without the job, we couldn’t pay the debts.

Are we understanding this yet?

A Gold Brick For A Tiny Home

I’m thinking we trip over the gold brick on our doorstep to rush out and pick up pennies in the field……

Plain and simple.

Have you noticed those popular Tiny Homes?
People don’t want to be possessed by their possessions anymore.

I can start with a large one and work my way down to a small one eventually…… It looks so darn free!

These people still work and buy things. But money doesn’t own them!

I like my creature comforts too, but it’s all relative. It’s what we get used to.

If we bought only what we need, our economy would collapse!
Seriously…..Think about it.
 
From where you’re sitting count what you see, that you can live without.

What would you take if you had to leave in two minutes?….And that’s just one room. 

I knew a family who had no electricity or running water.
They came to this country with a small bundle each.

To their credit, they had good ideas, seemed determined to work hard, and they were good farmers…..
Says a lot in my book.

They rent-farmed a few hundred acres, sold most of the food, and lived on the rest for the year.

They were forced to use what they had and they didn’t have much.

A nearly rusted-out truck for the farm runs, and a wood stove for heat.

Where did they come from? What did they leave behind?

O, just some soldiers on horseback planning on wiping out their whole village.
So they fled and landed here. 

There were seven of them, happy to be alive. They were in great danger!

This is all relative; none of us have ever been in their shoes. 
Unless we were there to see it, we can’t understand it.

 But I understood the turn-about……….they sowed joy and gratitude.

They had everyone’s respect because they worked so hard. Non-stop.
They were cheerful and talked about this good life. 

They attracted everyone to themselves.

A building bee and all five kids helped to put up their house.

Hard work and a good education were expected! 
You didn’t argue with their Dad.

They had a NEED. They were putting gratitude, and joy out there.

It had a boomerang effect.

A Perfect Example

My Mom was the most positive person in the world. 

It was so annoying. Why was she so cheerful? So nice?

How could she glide through life, with me as her daughter?
Where did that constant smile come from?

Good kept coming back to her.

As we understood it, she and her siblings – all 15 children – would sit around the woodstove at night. They joked and laughed. They got along so well, with all those people in one small house……
Legend has it. 

One of my younger cousins said, “It was easy for you to get along when you were little. Saints still roamed the earth. No one argued in those days”.

She was so innocent when she said this.
It ruffled some feathers, though.

Momma died at a ripe old age, while life had thrown everything at her generation.

They lived through two world wars, the depression, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and everything after that. These people had thick skins!

We had so much fun with our Mom! She danced to our music and we played games.

We made popcorn and ate peanut butter and jam sandwiches.

That was the bright side of life, but we didn’t know it yet.
We were as dumb as two short planks.

She taught us how to speak french-piglatin. Sounds just like the name…..no one could understand it. This piglatin should have been used in WW2 for secret codes.

Only French Canadians could understand it…….maybe.

What did Momma get in return for putting it out there?
She was happy and content.

She was special and loved having lots of people around. They couldn’t stay away.
Some days they took over like earth-moving equipment.

There was nowhere to hide……I Digress.

There’s That Attraction Thing Again

SHE JUST ATTRACTED EVERYONE!

She had nine siblings living in town. I lost count of the number of cousins I have.
A gazillion, maybe.

For me that was the payoff.
Wasn’t it just like her, to reward me for my skepticism of positivity?

I got a huge family and a pretty good idea of how to reap what I sowed.
I’d been doing it all along……it’s a fact; it’s Biblical! 

Can’t imagine a better gift than to have her example. It’s a recipe for success!
Better than a formal education!

Being so positive doesn’t happen by accident.
You need to work at it…because luck has nothing to do with it. 

“THINGS” are the WAY of Things

In our neck of the woods, we were taught, from television, to want more of everything.
Me, I prefer farm equipment and do-dads for the house.
Like my simple cookie jar.

Advertisers tell us that we should buy something and our relatives will be envious. Why do we want our relatives to be discontented with us? 

Why do we need more things??…….Because….They’re supposed to make us happy!……Remember?

We spend the first two-thirds of our lives buying all this stuff, and the last one-third trying to get rid of it.

We loaded up with things so we could give them away! 

If we had known that we would just get rid of it, later on, would we buy it in the first place?
Would we have all this stuff?

I am way too cheap for that…….And NONE of this made me happy!

What am I Going to DO About it?

I’m not saying this can just happen; it isn’t easy. It’s like polishing a car; we work at becoming shiny. 

You can decide not to be annoying. Smile and always see the bright side. Enjoy people and make them feel good about themselves.

Don’t buy THINGS to fill a void.

You’re asking a lot from me right now! Here’s the blueprint and I can’t waste it.
Momma would say: deal with it. Make lemonade.

Take the bad with the good, learn from it, and, you reap what you sow. I’m dealing with the information she left me. I want to share it with everyone. 

When you are positive, people will come to you, just to be in your company.
You’ll be pleased-as-punch!

That’s when you know you’re doing it right.

Matt was serving in a pizza place, always looking to make people happy.
Positive and outgoing, entertainment personified.
People went there to see him! Not to eat pizza.

The owners wanted him to stay on and made him offers. 

He got educated and married. He’s a family man now.

He chose to be happy. 

Are we supposed to be in a war before we have happiness?
Then, get happy when the war is over?

It doesn’t matter what your financial worth is.
A positive attitude is a sought-after commodity. 

It needs to live on.

I’ll have what Matt’s having.
And watch it all come back!

Regards, Corinne

Next Time: ‘From Cape Town To Belgium’