Something happened to me this morning that I thought was almost like Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.
I'm grateful to be able to take care a lot of really cool and awesome people in my practice.
This morning, Harold came in. Harold, is a 70-year old man, and he lost his wife to M.S.
He's just in a really, really bad place. Life has lost its meaning and he's kind of dragging himself around, and things are not good for him right now. They're not good.
He's going through the motions and it's been a long time he lost his wife 10 years ago.
Contrast that with Doug. Doug has almost the exact same scenario.
Doug also lost his wife six years ago to breast cancer.
When Doug came into the practice this morning he was laughing, he was smiling, he was talking about how he just got remarried. He's excited to go on his honeymoon and he was excited to be alive.
I think there's a very importnat lesson to be learend from here.
The lesson here is not to go out and get remarried or to be with somebody else, if you were ever to lose your spouse. I know some people, if they were to lose their partner, wouldn't be able to handle something like that.
Here is the principle.
Make your future bigger than your present.
See, Harold is stuck in the past. He cannot see what's going to happen tomorrow. He is not capable of getting excited about anything.
Whereas Doug, not to say that he doesn't miss his wife, but he's excited for his future. He's excited for where his life is going.
We all know at least one person who is always talking about the good old days, "I remember back when...those were the good old days," or always speaking positively of the past.
There's nothing wrong with having great memories, and reminsicng about them, but your life keeps going forward.
And if your future isn't bigger, definitely bigger than your past and bigger than your present, you're going to have a really hard time being happy and excited about life. That's really the lesson for today.
How you think is going to impact the quality of your life. So always, always, always make sure, even if you're in the worst possible situation right now and even if it's the smallest thing, even if it's somethign as simple as seeing a movie on Friday, always have something to look forward to.
It's about making your future bigger than your past.