Train Time no. 14

Today, it’s the 4:50 bound for Homewood.

Some days are harder than others when it comes to having a good attitude, keeping your chin up, keeping the faith…

However, there are two or three things that tend to help me along the way by lifting my chin and reminding me that it is usually not as bad as I might think, and that I really do have what it takes.

First and foremost… If one learns to pay attention, one can see that the good Lord is usually always giving you little reminders of how well your life is going, and in some cases, how much worse off you could be.

One such example came to me today while waiting for this train. There was a man with a seeing eye dog waiting near me for the same train. He ( the man) had glasses, with what we used to call “Coke bottle lenses” that were extremely thick. These obviously allowed him to see what little he could see as he stared at his smart phone screen positioned about one inch from his face. His seeing eye dog seemed kind of skiddish at first as the train began its noisy approach. However, once the train stopped with the door for the train about three feet away, the dog very quickly began guiding him into the door and towards a seat.

These kinds of things happen to me all the time. And, like I said above, one needs to pay attention in order for things like this to make an impact.

Here we have a man who is legally blind, possibly facing a situation that will probably not improve much, doomed to facing many decades of total darkness. And yet, he seems to be highly focused, determined to face the day like there was nothing wrong at all

And then there is me; grumbling and complaining like my world is falling apart, and on those bad days, annoyed at every little thing.

The point here is that I too easily see only a negative perspective of what life has to offer. I too easily forget that everything in life has a silver lining if only we choose to open our eyes and see them.

This man wasn’t just another Joe waiting for a train. He was a reminder of just how much I have to be thankful for; of just how great my life really is.

This brings me to another positive point that helps me out:

That over and over again, much of what we worry about only looks bad because of how we choose to think about it. Sure there are problems in the world that need our attention, but often times these issues are made much worse because we worry ourselves to death about them rather than just face them head on, and then keep on keeping on.

Once you can get past the negativity, you can then begin to see that life is really pretty amazing, that the challenges really only help us to learn and to grow and to value the good times, and that the world, is really nothing more or less than what we make it out to be. If we focus on the bad and the negative, than typically that is what life will be.

Yet if we are grateful for every little thing, and allow ourselves real joy rather than looking towards the shadows, than real joy is what we will have.

There are days like this where I ask myself: who is the blind one, the man with the dog, or me!