Enlightening Flashlights
It all began innocently enough. We thought we’d purchase a nice flashlight, since we live in an area devoid of any outdoor lighting. Something a bit more . . . advanced than the dime-store variety we’ve previously kept beside the bed.
Little did we know that this trivial purchase would lead us to discover an entire sub-culture of world citizens.
The flashlight enthusiasts.
You see, we were researching the various models on the web, and stumbled upon a flashlight forum. Soon we were reading posts by people who had collections of twenty or thirty flashlights (or more!), and witnessing passionate debates on what flashlight was best in what circumstances.
Perhaps the most significant discovery we made was to learn that there are thousands of people in the world community whose eyes carefully monitor the lights in their home – watching for any flicker or sputter in their brightness. Yes, you guessed it. They are eagerly awaiting . . .
. . . a power failure.
That’s right. For most of us, this is an annoyance which clearly should not occur. Some ineptness from the folks who pipe us our electricity, and suddenly we’re in the dark, stumbling about looking for a candle, cursing because we forgot to save that latest document on our computer and now we’ve lost an hour’s worth of work.
But for the flashlight folks, the power outage is cause for celebration! Time to whip out the home-defense-worthy Night Ops Gladius, the trendy Surefire L6, or the ultimate flashlight – the Wiseled Tactical. Maybe all three.
All it takes to turn something negative (a power outage) into something positive is a good excuse. Heck, you don’t even have to be a flashlight junkie. You could just see it as a good reason to have a romantic dinner, cooked over a campfire in the back yard.
There are lots of events like this in our lives. We have a plan in mind, and along comes the world, nasty and disrespectful as ever, and squashes our plans. It’s a good time to get really upset.
Or really creative.
Maybe tomorrow my doctor will tell me I only have two months left to live. Maybe my house will burn down, or my computer will crash. Maybe I’ll get thrown off my horse and never be able to walk again.
These are all terrible things, right?
But if I only have two months left to live, maybe I’ll be enticed to really live those two months, and do some of the things I was planning to put off until ‘later’ in life.
If my house burns down, maybe I’ll take the insurance money and decide to pursue that dream of living in a yurt.
If my computer crashes, maybe I’ll find my life simplified since all my life’s relevant info is now scattered over hundreds of files and folders, none of them placed quite where they should be.
And if I get paralyzed, maybe I’ll sit down and write the fifty different books which I never would have gotten to if I was so distracted by moving about all the time.
Any of these circumstances could be positively awful. Or any of them could make incredibly positive changes in my life.
The funny thing is that it doesn’t have to be something huge to make a difference. The circumstance might be a co-worker who’s in a bad mood. A bill that we weren’t expecting. A stain on a new shirt.
Bad things, right? But all it takes is a little creativity, and you can probably find a way to turn those ‘bad things’ around.
If we can realize that it’s not our external circumstances, but our internal attitudes that make all the difference, we can break our habits of wasting all our life energies always trying to balance the budget and work out all the other ‘problems’ of our lives.
And as usual, there’s a magical end to the story. Because it doesn’t take long to discover that almost everything ‘bad’ in our lives is of our own making – created out of our constant efforts to ‘improve’ this or that.
If you give up trying to fix everything, just for a little while, and start seeing the positive in life’s circumstances, you’ll be amazed at how miraculously wonderful life can really be.
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