wah, wah, wha,

My husband and I often echo this back and forth jokingly. Life is full of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

Waking up every day, having your family around you, doing what you love for your job, is the Good! We all have something to be thankful for, blessings that make life bearable on even the worst of days. Some days seem overflowing and others can seem void of things to be happy about, but it is possible to find joy and happiness by looking hard and rejoicing in even the smallest blessing. I don’t talk about the truly hard times in my life because even in those times there were things to be thankful for and for me, focusing on them got me through. Sometimes in my journal I will list the good things, it helps me to really grab onto them and hold them tightly to my heart.

The Bad

When we hear of things, like the horrific devastation in Japan, our focus shifts and we realize that what we measure bad with is not adequate. It is unimaginable and we are left without words. Times like this make us appreciate what we have and our hearts go out to those in need. Many artists are now working on ways to reach out through our art. More will be posted about this soon. We all do what we can even when it is just the offering of a whispered prayer on the behalf of someone(s) we will never meet. We lift each other up because we realize it could so easily be us.

The Ugly

This is where the Golden Rule should come into play, but often, sadly, it does not. Out in the online world it can often feel like you are in a closed little community and what you say is not going to be overheard by anyone outside the group.  Once you hit ‘enter’ your words are out there for everyone to see. It’s so easy to tear down instead of build up, this is one side of human nature. Once a negative comment is out there it can rapidly go downhill as people lose the restraint that might be present in a face to face conversation. This happens to most of us and it is unfortunate, but the best way to keep it from happening is to ask yourself if you would say that to the persons face before you hit enter. There are ways to express you opinion that are respectful to the person and everyone has the right to do that, and to their opinion. Voicing our opinions is something we should do! It’s when things degrade to snarky comments that don’t do anything but tear down that things can get ugly.

One thing that I noticed this past week was that my creative muse was here for the Good, and the Bad. It identified with these emotions and artwork poured out in a response to them. Not so with the Ugly. Ugliness stifles the muse within no matter which end of it, giving or receiving, you are on. So I choose today to let Ugly go, it does no one any good and there are so many, much more important things to focus our hearts and creativity on.