It’s very easy to get caught up in our experiences and label them as bad or good, healthy or unhealthy, or a myriad of other definitions, as we traverse the journey commonly known as “Life.”
I’ve certainly done it, and I believe we all have the capacity to do it, because we want our lives to, above all, not be difficult. Right?
Well, what if with a shift in perspective, we can jettison those labels and just experience this thing called Life?
Easier said than done.
Maybe we start with taking a walk down memory lane and thinking about many of the things we used to look at as bad, or terrible, or whatever negative connotation we may have placed on them. Are there some that turned out to be experiences that moved us to revise our thoughts, way of doing things, or maybe even shifted our entire life in a different direction?
I have a LOT of those! Maybe you do too!
As many of you know, I went through a drug and alcohol treatment program at 19 years old. One of the most taxing, scary, and difficult things I’d done to that point in my life. Actually, it probably qualifies as top five most difficult times in my life!
Okay, so I can just leave it there and label it as that and move on with my life, right? Yes, I can. I can do that with any experience that was difficult, or uncomfortable, or traumatic, or whatever I’d like to call it.
However, since that time, my life has changed immensely! My world and my life has become an expansive, beautiful canvas on which I’ve been fortunate to paint and draw and mold a life that I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams!
Why?
Well, because that traumatic, extremely difficult time in my life showed me that if I live unconsciously and follow what the crowd does, I can have a life that gives me more of the same … and worse. If I drink and do drugs, lie, cheat, and steal to support my addictions, I will reap the “rewards” of that lifestyle and move down a path that becomes increasingly destructive and detrimental to me and to those I love.
So what was I compelled to do if I decided I didn’t want to live that way anymore?
CHANGE
I had to change the way I approached my life, I had to change who I chose to hang out with, I had to change my behaviors, and I had to change how I acquired “feeling good.”
My life became a journey of attempting, with all my might, to do the right things for me and the right things for those whose lives I touch.
Have I done it right all the time? Nooooo. I have messed it up many times and I will likely do that till the day I am no longer on this planet. But I am increasingly conscious about what I do, how I do it, and who is affected by those actions.
All I can do is my best to get better, day by day, week by week, year by year. But … I have to do my best.
What did all of this, as well as many hundreds of other experiences that I used to label as “bad” teach me?
That they’re “not all that bad.”
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