  Spiritual
This week: Your Attitude Follows You Edited by: ember_rain
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| I am the daughter of a preacher and a social worker. Mom taught me that no one was unredeemable with her attempts to help abusers learn a better way and substance addicts overcome their addictions. Daddy taught me that understanding humanity meant understanding their faith and encouraged me to research and decide for myself what I thought was true. I may have changed my religion but I came to believe that all paths lead to the same place. Just because we use different names and titles doesn't mean that at the core of our beliefs we aren't all the same. My newsletters for this section will be all encompassing and encouraging of an all faiths environment. There is even room for the skeptics and atheists because regardless of their view, it is needed to bring balance to the world. |
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So, with the election and all, there has been, as usual, a lot of talk about people moving to other countries. Mostly on social media and the news that reports on social media. It always reminds me of a story my father use to tell. There was this older man sitting on his porch watching the traffic moving into the city as it passed by. He was out there every day, just watching. One day a car pulled up and stopped with a nice looking family inside. The driver rolled down his window and informed the old man that they were moving to town and asked what living in that town was like.
"Well, what was the last place you lived like," the old man asked?
"It was a wonderful place where everyone helped their neighbors and looked out for each other," came the reply.
"Yes, you will find people here like that," the old man confirmed, and the family went on their way happy in that knowledge.
The next day another family stopped and asked the same question and got the same question in return. "The people were horrible. No one helped anyone else. Everyone was always looking to get ahead on the backs of their neighbors."
"Yes," the old man agreed. "You will find your share of folks like that here too." The second family went away dejected that they wouldn't find anything new. The truth is all places are the same. They all have good people and bad. They all go through their ups and downs. It is our outlook on those things that makes or breaks the quality of a town or country for us personally.
I realized last night while talking to some people here on WDC that this little story goes beyond just the surface message my father always used it for. I realized it also taught the lesson that past behavior is indicative of future behavior. Does this mean that we as humans don't change? No, we absolutely do. But, that change is gradual and takes quite a few epiphany's to make happen. Those families in the story could get what they were expecting because their past behavior was to look for those things in people.
Whether we are writing a story or dealing with people in our everyday life, understanding not just the history of the person but the history of the world at large both allows us to understand a bit better where they might be coming from and to anticipate what they may do based upon past behaviors. Some of the best stories are when the character doesn't do what their past has predicted they will do.
Like those families in the first part of this, they don't have to find what they left behind. They can choose to change their outlook on things and perhaps find something different. Or they can choose to stay the same and see only what they normally see. For the first family, we hope that past views and behaviors lead them to more of the same. For the latter family, we hope they find some happiness and change their outlook so they can see the true joy in every experience. Unfortunately, past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior and it doesn't look good for them. Fortunately for us, we still have plenty of time to change our attitudes and behaviors. When we and our characters know better we both can do better. Here is to brighter horizons, looking for the positive, finding what we look for, and doing better in the new year. |
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My last newsletter had quite the turnout in comments. Here are a few of them
Michaelmountain:spring hope  : I am not sure you can give up on hope. Hope is the one thing that defines who we are. Our culture says, "Hope so." The Spiritual world says there must be something in your world that is unshakeable.
Shannon  : First of all, I love your "About This Newsletter" section: "... all paths lead to the same place. Just because we use different names and titles doesn't mean that at the core of our beliefs we aren't all the same." I agree with you 100%.
Secondly, this newsletter is beautiful and thought-provoking. Yes, most of us are one layoff, one debilitating injury away from financial devastation and homelessness. We may have a little money saved, but we basically live paycheck to paycheck, and any disturbance in that routine has immediate, life-altering consequences.
Thank you for sharing your story with us, and I hope and pray the light of providence shine on you and your family in 2017. 
Vaughan Jones - ONE Scribe : Hope springs eternal, as it should for all of us.
Bringing one's reality into line with what one wants and requires in unison with developments in one's life is quite another matter. If one's reality is not in line with all the factors influencing one's life at any given point, therefore out of sync with all that is taking place in the different areas of life, discord will take place.
One needs to consistently meditate/pray in order to be in tune with the reality in the different areas of one's life. It can be done.
I send my blessings to everyone in this new year of constant change.
There just isn't room to include them all. Thank you to everyone who did comment.
So how does your outlook affect your present and possibly your future? Can you see where you find what you look for in your own life? And is there a past behavior you may reconsider in order to make your future a little less predictable in the future? Or maybe you have a character whose plot path has changed due to this newsletter. Tell us about it!
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Spiritual: February 01, 2017 Issue [#8102]
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