What is your focus? - Rev. Colleen Irwin

This post about focus was originally posted on October 9, 2016.
Today I am finding it to be an important reminder for just about everyone I come across these days.

I have to remind myself about this — what is my focus? There was a point in time that someone pointed it out to me. It was the fall of 2014 and it took time for it to change my life, but it has.

It was a time in my life I was so negative that I wished for a new life. I didn’t even know that I was so negative. I did know I was angry and very unhappy.

My ability to survive and even thrive during some of the worst times of my life is directly related to being grateful for the little things. Sit down and have gratitude for what you have. Do not focus on the negatives. Every day I write in my datebook what I am grateful for. Sometimes it is a person, other times a thing or an event that happened that day. It is a great way to end the day.

I recently came across this story. It really made me think of all that I have been able to accomplish the moment I adopted an attitude of gratitude. Try it. It may make all the difference in your life too!

A Story of Focus

Complain times three..

It takes a disciplined spirit to endure the monastery on Mount Serat in Spain. One of the fundamental requirements of this religious order is that the young men must maintain silence. Opportunities to speak are scheduled once every two years, at which time they are allowed to speak only two words.

One young initiate in this religious order, who had completed his first two years of training, was invited by his superior to make his first two-word presentation. “Food terrible,” he said. Two years later the invitation was once again extended. The young man used this forum to exclaim, “Bed lumpy.” Arriving at his superior’s office two years later he proclaimed, “I quit.”

The superior looked at this young monk and said, “You know, it doesn’t surprise me a bit. All you’ve done since you arrived is complain, complain, complain.

Exaggerated? Maybe. What if you were asked to share two words that describe your Life? would your focus be the lumps, bumps, and unfairness, or are you committed to dwell on those things that are good, right, and lovely?