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What Do You See?
By karen | May 29, 2007
Envision this, a beautiful, small town with quiet tree-lined streets and pretty, well-kept houses lined up in a row. Downtown the storefronts are all perfectly displayed and the merchants have pride in their businesses. In fact almost everyone who lives there has a great pride in the town, the streets are clean, the houses and buildings are painted and well maintained. The crime rate is low or even non-existent. This town is the perfect “Mayberry” (and you know we all dream of Mayberry at one time or another! At least I do!).
The town is almost perfect. The people are kind and loving and the streets, the gardens, the houses and the buildings are all beautiful and well maintained. It is the kind of town that people want to live in.
But as with everything, not all is perfect. In fact, there is one street in our imaginary town that for some reason or another gets forgotten. There are big potholes in the road, junk cars parked on the street and graffiti painted on one building. The gardens have been forgotten and there are large weeds growing in the lawns of the houses. It is a small part of the whole but it is there, the one negative aspect of the perfect town.
Now visitors flock to this town. They see the picturesque beauty of the whole and they also see the singular street. The residents who live there see the beautiful town and they also see the one unkept street.
Imagine that they all see the entire picture. They all see the town as a whole and they all see the one street.
There will be those who will say that this town is beautiful, picturesque, quaint and perfect. It is almost as if they don’t see the street. For them it is not the largest part of the whole.
And there will be those who will say that the town is unkept, there are potholes in the street and graffiti on the building. They will not acknowledge the pride of the whole but they will only focus upon the negatives of the singular street. In their mind the one street becomes the whole of the town.
Which group do you belong to? Do you see the beauty or do you see the potholes?
Everything in life has positive aspects and negative aspects. If you make a habit of focusing on, thinking about and dwelling upon the positive aspects whatever the subject is it will become more of that to you. If you make a habit of focusing upon the potholes and the negativity of life, Life will become more of that for you.
The people who live in our imaginary town who see the beauty and the charm live in a magical, picturesque and beautiful place. They are happy, carefree and joyful.
The people who focus only upon the potholes live in a dirty, unkept place, with multitudes of problems and difficulties.
But they all live in the same town. They all see the same things.
The town is irrelevant. The difference is what they choose to focus upon.
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The Personal Development Carnival June 3, 2007 edition has included this post.
This week the carnival is hosted by its founder and my good friend Lyman at Creating a better Life Next week you can find the carnival here at Live the Power. Please submit your article through the blog carnival submission page at The Personal Development Carnival
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This post is included in the Happiness Carnival-June 3, 2007 located at Think Happy Thoughts
Popularity: 2% [?]
Topics: Personal Development, Living the Power, Reflections, Real Life |
May 30th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Karen,
I tagged you for the “High Vibes game” for this article, but I think Cardin had already tagged you. I really enjoyed this post so I’m still happy to submit to HighVibeIt.
Have a joyous day!
May 30th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Thanks Debra! yes, Cardin tagged me. I’m working on my post now! thanks for letting me know of your appreciation of this post. That always makes my day joyous!!!
August 6th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Our thoughts really do make all the difference.