Sometimes I Wonder...

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I really do not know why it is that people think SO DIFFERENTLY about life. I don't always determine my initial thoughts about things. They just seem to be what pops into my head.


Maybe they ARE a result of my life. Maybe they ARE a result of the things that have influenced me. But my initial thoughts.. they just pop in.


Having said that, I will add that I have made great efforts down through the years of my life to be thankful for what I have and to RESIST negative thinking and ingratitude.


I'm sure starting out in the foothills of the Appalachians there in East Tennessee surrounded with people who were getting commodities to have something to eat, going to the dump and scavenging for "treasures" and watching them often be under the hoods of their cars trying to make it go again today, added to my perspective.


I also believe that catching rain water from the gutters in a barrel to bathe in, going to a pump to pump water to use inside, or even beyond that, filling the car up with stainless steel milk cans and driving to a spring that was at least a half dozen miles away, to get drinking and cooking water.... I believe those things figure in too.


No inside bathroom and yet --like a child--wondering why visiting relatives would always choose to stay in a motel instead with us. Going to the toilet and using old catalogs for "tissue". Crumple. Uncrumple. Crumple. Uncrumple. Over and over trying to make the catalog pages soft before using them.


Having my dresses made from feed sacks. But, the feed companies knew we needed that fabric and that's why they bagged their feed like that.


My parents working in a garden, canning.


Mom washing with an old wringer washer-- which I once got my hair caught in-- having to carry her water from the rain barrel I guess. Also, the stove. The stove I fell on and burnt my hands. An old wood burning cookstove The whole top got hot when it was fired up.


The source of heat in our living room was from a Barrel on legs that my daddy built. A drum. Turned sideways (like is used sometimes for grills now though not so plush). He put a flat top on it with some kind of metal, possibly aluminum, what was used to keep a kettle of water heating.


We went barefooted most of the time. Back then some kids even would go to school barefooted. I can't remember if we did. But I know I did all the time at home, even when it got colder I'd not put on shoes until I absolutely had to.


No TVs back then.  But we'd rush home--walking-- from school in order to not miss the latest segments on the radio of the Lone Ranger and other stories that came on right after school.


So my background has to have had some bearing on the way I think about things I'm sure. BUT, it's not that which causes me, when I lie down at night and have a hard time getting myself warmed up, to think of all the hundreds of people in the world RIGHT NOW that are freezing cold. My mind goes to Siberian, to all the really cold countries, to older people in city apartments who can't afford proper heating, to homeless people on the streets, and I think... You are so blessed to just have what you have. Not everyone has the choice to get up and get more covers or...finally, to dig out an electric blanket and plug it in.


When I've having to deal with ANY lack that I have, my mind goes like that. And it's not confined to the here and now either. I think back through history to all that people have had to live without-- sometimes people who were the "wealthy" of the time, but they just did not have the advantages of our modern inventions.


So, I am thankful.... that's my natural way of dealing with things.


Even when things get difficult and the problems rise to the surface and affect my feelings-- frustration, irritation, or other feelings that spring up when life turns "unfair"--I find that it's not long before I'm reminding myself how good I have it and that I just need to deal with these issues in the right perspective. They are NOT mountains. They are molehills.


An attitude of thankfulness can really go a long way toward causing you to enjoy life. Every day I look around my home and thank God for being so good to give me such a wonderful place to live that I love so much. (And if an outsider would compare what I have to what many others have they'd see no great cause for me to be SO happy about it. My situation is not one that people long to have theirs be like.)


On my job, even when it gets frustrating, I tend to allow the things I like "rise to the top". And I end up thinking on why I'm blessed to have THIS job.


There's nothing like thankfulness to make you happy with life in general. You do not see yourself as downtrodden and abused. You do not dwell on the things that irritate.... You realize how good things REALLY are in your life, and you're GLAD.


What made me think of all this?


I was reading my last post about work. And I realized how mundane my life is. I go to work and I come home and I rarely do anything significantly "exciting" but I'm very happy with my life. I enjoy it. I like living it. It's pleasant for me. In all its mundaneness, it does not bore me. I do not feel like life is passing me by... that there's something "out there" that I'm missing out on. I'm not lonely. I'm not sad. I'm not depressed.


Life is good.