Photo By: Elizabeth Preston
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about a friend who passed away a little over a year ago. She is best described as giggling, cussing sunshine, and that’s how I’ll always remember her. She turned cinnamon candy red when she laughed, and she had a heart that overflowed with love for animals. I think that she saved about five dogs and cats from abusive situations. I won’t pretend to know what she was going through, I won’t pretend to comprehend her pain, and I won’t pretend to understand her actions. I wish for a lot of things, but I wish that she had seen how good she was and how much she was loved. Most of all, though, I wish that there was an “undo” button.
Photo By: Elizabeth Preston
Sometimes, I think that we get down on ourselves. We can get into ruts where we think that we can’t do anything right and that there’s little good in us. Maybe we compare ourselves to others and think that we’re not doing enough with our lives. Maybe we don’t feel pretty enough, handsome enough, thin enough, muscular enough, smart enough—heck, that we’re just not enough. While it’s great to want to better ourselves, sometimes we forget the good things that we’ve already done and the good that is already in us. The dark overwhelms, and it chokes out the light. It’s when this happens that is the most worrisome. So, in the memory of my giggling, cussing sunshine friend, I want to issue a challenge to anyone who reads this. I want you to write a list of ten good things that you’ve done in your life (and I’ll do this too, although I probably won’t post it). They don’t have to be seemingly huge things like saving a baby hedgehog from a burning hamster cage (although, if you’ve done that, you, my friend, get major kudos). It can be as small as giving someone a Scantron, sharing your lunch, opening a door for a person, or complimenting someone because he/she looks like he/she has had a rough day. Even the smallest of things can have an impact, and, oftentimes, you won’t know the full ripple effect of your actions. Keep this list somewhere, and the next time that you get down on yourself, I want you to take it out and read it. Remember the light that you’ve created and that’s in you. Don’t need an “undo” button.
Video From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6v8OPX4p1A
At the Foot of the Sierras 
I love your post. And the light doesn’t have to be a very big one to shine in that darkness. I think I’ll do a post about light, too. Thanks for the inspiration.
It’s such a shame, isn’t it, when seeing a video about kindness can bring people to tears. Makes you wonder if we’ll ever learn anything, doesn’t it?
Thank you for the compliment and for reading! I’m glad that you enjoyed the post, and I look forward to reading your post about light. 🙂
That’s certainly one side of it. I think another side might be that we are emotionally touched by such videos because they reveal humans’ great potentials for good. They remind us of what we wish to see in humanity, of who we hope to be, and of how we hope others will treat us. There’s so much good in this world that gets clouded by evil acts. However, I try to think of it like this: for every one person creating darkness and harming others, there are ten people trying to help others and bring light into the world. It’s just that those ten people don’t make the evening news very often. I’m not sure if that’s reality, but I choose to believe in it anyways. 🙂
That’s a terrific comment. Reading what you just said I thought, man! My age is showing! I’m finding there’s a huge difference in the way I process emotional stuff as I get older. Maybe it’s just that I feel we’re running out of time?
Thank you. 🙂 I think that it’s the job of the younger generations to operate on the idealism of youth. However, I still think that your perception of the video is worthwhile regardless of age. Maybe we are running out of time, maybe we have a couple of millennia left in us. I’m not sure. I figure that I might as well stay as positive as I can for as long as I can in the meantime. 🙂