Change

So... my thoughts are somewhat complex right now but I will do my best to get them out... just in case there are people out there reading. If not, I will probably read this later on...

Anyway...

I'm not a huge fan of playing on words (?? I think that is the phrase that is used??) but the other day I read one on a friends myspace page and have been thinking about it since. Let me give an example of what I mean. "Life isn't about how many breaths you take. It's about the things that take your breath away." Hmm. It's cute (and for those of you who really like this quote, I am sorry-just a personal opinion) but so far from the truth. Today I played in a basketball tournament for work. I got hit in the gut. I couldn't breathe for a few seconds. At that moment I didn't think that what was life was about at all. On the contrary, I woke up early a few times last week and depending on the day went running/walking/biking. I was cold, the view was AMAZING and I was breathing real hard (particularly when I went running). Those mornings are soo much more what life is about then getting hit in the gut and not being able to breathe. OR, one more example, my sister Jami is afraid of heights but (I think) her favorite ride at Disney Land is a haunted house that takes your real high in the air and then drops you. From the pictures we have gotten back from those rides I think she forgets to breathe. Jami also has two amazing kids. She talks to them, sings to them, laughs with them and she breathes when she does all those things. To me life is about the breaths we take...and what we do while we take those breaths. If it were about the times that took our breath away I would encourage everyone to scare me and hit me in the gut as often as possible.

Now to the 0ne I like.

"If you don't like it, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you feel about."

WOW! Does that speak volumes to anyone else? It does to me. I feel I could write novels about that single phrase.

I should carry a pen with me throughout the day and make a mark on my hand each time I complain or hear someone else complain. Complain about myself, my work, my house, my clothes, my car, my neighbors, politics-local, national and international, global issues, what else? It seems there is complaining about everything.

Rather than complaining about something, what would happen if I used that same energy and tried to change it? Change is hard, perhaps the hardest of all things but I am a human for crying out loud! Humans can do anything-even walk on the moon! And the things I can't change? What is I started using my mind to change the perception? Find perfection in things with imperfection? What an amazing concept!

If you don't like it, change it! If you can't change it, change the way you feel about it! A formula for happiness!

Moving on to my next thought... this came as I came home to change my clothes-out of my basketball clothes back into my ropes course clothes. Just a little preface to these thoughts, I live next to an elementary school and while I was changing my clothes I heard them out and about playing!

If I were to have written those thoughts as I were having them, this is what would would've been written.

Right now I am sitting in my living room. I am looking out my window. It's a beautiful day. The best thing about this moment though is what I hear. There is an elementary school next to my house and I am listening to the kids play. Laughing and screaming and playing.

Perfection. What is it? The best definition I have come up with is: children. Kids are perfect. They are kind, they are loving, they are unable to judge and they find happiness in simple things; to me that is perfection.

Tol and Addi. They are perfect to me.

Kids come into this world and they are surrounded my adults. Parents, perhaps siblings and friends and media-adults are everywhere! And kids come having to depend on those blasted adults for everything. That seems backwards to me.

What would the world be like if the kids across the street made the rules (I am guessing the kids out there are in 1st or 2nd grade)? It would be different. Kids don't notice pretty and ugly, fat and thin, black and white. They don't notice the subtle differences that make individuals different-much less the dramatic differences that make us hate.Perhaps some kids notice but where and how do they learn it? From adults.

I have a pretty idealistic mind. I wouldn't have it any other way though. I know that I'm not always my best self but I would hope that I can break the ideas and stereotypes I have about people and encourage others to do the same. People are people. Everyone wants the same thing. To be loved and accepted for being them-no matter the clothes they are wearing or the numbers on the scale.

The kids are playing RedRover right now. I can hear them. They are ALL holding hands and playing together. They are laughing and encouraging each other. I wish that the adults in their lives could have a front row seat...