This morning I was going through my email and reading the weekly newsletter from my pastor. In the email he wrote about his experience with "Abundance Based Living" through the month of October. He had made a commitment to spend the month of October focused on Abundance Based Living rather than Scarcity Based Living. Promising to start each day knowing that his needs would be provided for, pausing in the middle of each day to reflect on his blessings, and ending each day thankful for what had been provided.
Now, whether you're a believer or not, the idea of trying to focus on Abundance Based Living seems to me to be a good attitude to have. It basically boils down to focusing on the positive rather than the negative. It's not always easy. So often we focus on what our lives lack instead of focusing on the blessings in our lives. So often we focus on what "the other guy" has that we don't have. So often we focus on what how we'd have done it differently or "the RIGHT way" instead of recognizing that doing it "different" is NOT the same as doing it "wrong".
So I challenge anyone who follows my blog (all one of you)...lol...try it for a a month. Try to wake up every morning thankful for the day you've been given and the blessings you have. Pause each day to reflect on the good that has happened. And end each day thankful that you made it through another day. If you're reading this then let me clue you in....you've obviously got access to a computer, so I have no doubt that you've got a roof over your head and food to eat. There's a start. Many in this world don't even have that much.
To ramble on just a bit more....a few years ago I had the priviledge of meeting two women from New Orleans, LA. These women were both dispatchers for the New Orleans Police Dept. and had been at work when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. Both had lost their houses in the disaster. Not only had they lost their houses, but they had lost everything that was in their houses. They came out of Hurricane Katrina with no possessions other than the clothes on their backs. These two women were the most positive individuals I had ever met. They laughed, they joked and they were thankful for what they had. Yes, that's right...two women who had lost what we might describe as "everything" were thankful. I wondered how that could be. How could these two women have such a positive outlook on life after what they'd been through and everything they'd lost? I asked them that question...and the answer I got was so simple. It wasn't the fact that they'd lost so much that they focused on...it was what they had. They knew that, following such a disaster, they were really the lucky ones. They still had jobs to go to...many did not. Even though they'd lost their homes, they had been provided with a roof over their heads...many had not. They woke up each morning and went to bed each night...many had died in that disaster. Simply being alive was a blessing. We take so much foregranted and maybe THAT is why we have to work to focus on the positives in our lives.
Try it for month. If you can honestly say that you focused on your HAVES and not your HAVE NOTS for a full month and it didn't change the way you think about life...it didn't make you happier...it didn't make you more content...it didn't relieve a lot of the stress in your life...then I'll concede defeat. But if you honestly live an Abundance Based life for the month, spending each day being thankful for what you have and what God has given you, instead of being upset about what you don't have and can't control, then I predict that you will live a much happier life, not just in November, but for a long time to come.
Now, whether you're a believer or not, the idea of trying to focus on Abundance Based Living seems to me to be a good attitude to have. It basically boils down to focusing on the positive rather than the negative. It's not always easy. So often we focus on what our lives lack instead of focusing on the blessings in our lives. So often we focus on what "the other guy" has that we don't have. So often we focus on what how we'd have done it differently or "the RIGHT way" instead of recognizing that doing it "different" is NOT the same as doing it "wrong".
So I challenge anyone who follows my blog (all one of you)...lol...try it for a a month. Try to wake up every morning thankful for the day you've been given and the blessings you have. Pause each day to reflect on the good that has happened. And end each day thankful that you made it through another day. If you're reading this then let me clue you in....you've obviously got access to a computer, so I have no doubt that you've got a roof over your head and food to eat. There's a start. Many in this world don't even have that much.
To ramble on just a bit more....a few years ago I had the priviledge of meeting two women from New Orleans, LA. These women were both dispatchers for the New Orleans Police Dept. and had been at work when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. Both had lost their houses in the disaster. Not only had they lost their houses, but they had lost everything that was in their houses. They came out of Hurricane Katrina with no possessions other than the clothes on their backs. These two women were the most positive individuals I had ever met. They laughed, they joked and they were thankful for what they had. Yes, that's right...two women who had lost what we might describe as "everything" were thankful. I wondered how that could be. How could these two women have such a positive outlook on life after what they'd been through and everything they'd lost? I asked them that question...and the answer I got was so simple. It wasn't the fact that they'd lost so much that they focused on...it was what they had. They knew that, following such a disaster, they were really the lucky ones. They still had jobs to go to...many did not. Even though they'd lost their homes, they had been provided with a roof over their heads...many had not. They woke up each morning and went to bed each night...many had died in that disaster. Simply being alive was a blessing. We take so much foregranted and maybe THAT is why we have to work to focus on the positives in our lives.
Try it for month. If you can honestly say that you focused on your HAVES and not your HAVE NOTS for a full month and it didn't change the way you think about life...it didn't make you happier...it didn't make you more content...it didn't relieve a lot of the stress in your life...then I'll concede defeat. But if you honestly live an Abundance Based life for the month, spending each day being thankful for what you have and what God has given you, instead of being upset about what you don't have and can't control, then I predict that you will live a much happier life, not just in November, but for a long time to come.
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