Post 27: I Can Choose What I Look For

When can something bad happening to me be good? I break up with my girlfriend, and the next woman I meet becomes my wife. I get fired, and the next job I find makes me happy most every day. I lose a lot of cash, and it teaches me to protect my money better the next time.

All these are true stories I have lived through. So, to answer the original question: bad things happening to me become good when I keep going, or learn, or grow. Bad is only really detrimental in the moment. If I go on to the next moment, I can almost always find something helpful from having the experience.

Painful experiences only keep me unhappy when I hold on to them, can’t stop thinking about them, or stay stuck in the part I thought was unacceptable. Consciously or not, I choose to stay focused on the unpleasant. Then I carry around the bad feeling with me.

I find when I am in “carry around the bad” mode, everything piles up. The bad parts from one experience add to the negative ones from the next, and so on. Then I am walking around all the time carrying so much pain.

Every time I have switched my focus to look for the good, I have found something. When I choose what I focus on, I get what I look for.

~Ryan Lynch

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