Pictures, Petals, and Pleasantries

            As my daughters are now adults, I have been going through totes of pictures accumulated since birth.  I love scrapbooking, so I am finally getting around to sorting, embellishing, and inserting into scrapbooks, along with tidbits I remember.  The pictures recovered tell my story.  Your photographs tell your story.   Special moments today are the memories of tomorrow.  Let us not take for granted the people around us that we love or who love us.  Most of us have witnessed that life can be gone from us in a second.  

            Remember when we would take a daisy or any flower with petals on it, and we would pluck off one petal at a time saying – he loves me, he loves me not. Suppose love was only that easy.  As we mature, we realize the value of love and the importance of friendship.  Making friends and then leaving them throughout my childhood, I truly understand how valuable friendship can be.  Facebook has made it easier to stay in contact with old friends.  I am still in touch with my friend, Robyn, from ninth grade in Harlowton, Montana. 

            This brings me to my next topic – pleasantries.  According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, the formal definition is something, such as a greeting, that people say to be polite.  I believe this is so important in your everyday dealings with the public, neighbors, and friends.  I have had someone tell me how much it meant to them to see me smile and say, “have a nice day.”   These pleasantries can even make a person’s day brighter.  As humans, we can tend to look at the negative, even think negative thoughts about ourselves.

            In Dr. Daniel G. Amen, M.D.’s book, “Conquering Worry and Anxiety,” he states that we must fight negative thoughts that arise in our minds.  He calls them ANT’s (automatic negative thoughts).  He reminds us to continually push those negative thoughts to the back of our minds – asserting negative thoughts can make you sick and bring your attitude down further.  Dr. Amen also states, “redirect your mind with positive thoughts will help you overcome worry, anxiety, and self-defeatism and live your best possible life.”

            With the COVID-19 pandemic we all faced this past year, I believe we’ve all faced these ANT’s.  And for some, it’s easier than others to shove the negative thoughts to the back of our minds.  We need not compare ourselves or our situations with others.  We are all uniquely different people.  God made us this way. 

I’ve included some gratitude quotes below:

• “The single greatest thing you can do to change your life today would be to start being grateful for what you have right now.” – Oprah Winfrey

• “Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness. It’s the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul.” – Amy Collette

• “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” ― Melody Beattie

• “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” ― Willie Nelson

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