We’ve written over two hundred blog posts and many fall to this type. “Be happy with where you are” or “Be happy with your choices,” or “Be good with how it worked out.” And there is a lot of love being talked about. Loving our lives, loving those in our lives, loving ourselves. It is all part of making, finding, or keeping your enthusiasm for life.
Life, unlike our blog posts, happens every day. It comes at us each day, each hour, each minute. There will be times when you aren’t going to be happy where you are or with one of your choices, or how it worked out. Then what? One of our Moments of Motivation exhorted, “Don’t complain when things go wrong. Live with what you can. Learn from what you can’t. Grow from it all.” That then leads to regaining your positivity.
As we pointed out in One Job, “There is little impetus to improve something – a product, a task, a procedure – if that something is already working as well as it can.” We can add to the list of things seeking improvement to include a life.
What brought on this reminder to accept things that go wrong as opportunities to improve? Because lately things have gone wrong. The specifics and the details are not important. That we’ve found ourselves questioning our own counsel to keep up our enthusiasm for life is the telling point of the tale. After all, we also were the ones who said, “Sometimes “no” can be the most positive thing to say.” Are we going to be relegated to the “Do what I say, not what I do” crowd of orators. Actually, no. The complete quote is, “Know your limits. Sometimes “no” can be the most positive thing to say.” Know your limits. That becomes your starting point to improve, to live with what you can and learn from what you can’t. That is where you learn to extend your limits.
Extending your limits takes not much more than knowing where you are and where you want to be, then harnessing the enthusiasm to get you over the hurdle and encouraging yourself to greatness – or the next step to it. Having a friend who recognizes the hurdles makes the journey to improvement easier, and sometimes even fun.
That reminds us of a favorite story of encouragement that we shared in one of our earliest posts. The tale of Bill and Phil.
Bill and Phil shared a room in a nursing home and so much more. Both, quite infirmed, had no family and no visitors. Their only distractions were themselves. Bill was in the bed nearer the door. Not able to move from a laying position, he had been on his back for as long as anyone remembered. Phil, next to the window, was allowed to sit up in bed for one hour each day.
One afternoon as Phil was raised to his sitting position, his roommate Bill, anxious for a view of anything but the ceiling above, asked him what he saw, and thus began a tradition that was to continue throughout their acquaintance.
For one hour each day, Phil described scenes of the outside world – the blossoms in the spring, the bright colors of summer, the falling leaves in autumn, the crisp snow in winter. He spoke of children playing, animals scurrying, young lovers holding hands, and old friends taking in all around them. Whatever the season, whatever the weather, there was always something special to tell, and it was for those moments that Bill struggled to build his strength working toward the day when he would be strong enough to lift himself and join his friend looking out on the world.
One morning the aide came to wake the gentlemen and discovered Phil had passed away during the night. She expressed her sympathies to Bill on the loss of his friend. After a while Bill asked if he can be moved to be by the window. The nursing staff made the necessary arrangements and moved him. There, still in pain yet as carefully as possible, he struggled to lift himself little by little, until finally he got a glimpse of the scene outside the window. And there he saw the blank, brick wall of the building next door.
Dejected he asked the nurse why his friend had deceived him all these years, telling him of such a beautiful outside when there was nothing but a brick wall.
The nurse, confused about this replied, “He couldn’t have seen anything. You know Phil was blind.”
Then Bill’s eyes were opened! He realized he asked his friend what he saw, not what was outside the window. What Phil saw was the beauty of the world, and each day he described the scene he saw in his mind.
Some days later a new patient was assigned to the room. Bill’s new roommate was placed by the door in the position Bill himself so long had been. His new roommate says, “Hi, I hope you don’t mind a talker for a roommate. I have no family and nobody else is going to visit me. All I can do is lie here and look at the ceiling. Hey, since you are by the window, would you mind telling me what you see?”
“Absolutely!” said Bill. “I’d love to. It’s a really beautiful world.”
We can learn two things from Phil and Bill. Always know that just because you can’t see it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. And never underestimate the power of encouragement. The blind roommate Phil was able to create a world of beauty knowing somewhere out there was the world he saw, just maybe not the one right in front of him. Bill, his bed bound roommate, found a reason to work to improve himself through Phil’s world of words, and Phil knew his words were the encouragement Bill needed to work hard enough to affect that change.
Life comes at us every day and no, you’re not going to like every minute of it. Enjoy what you do like about it. Learn from what you don’t. Find your enthusiasm. Encourage a friend. Love yourself. Grow from it all.
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