Making a Choice to Focus on the Beauty

Life is beautiful.
Life is messy.
People are beautiful.
People are messy.

Morning in Cape May, NJ ............ Janet Oberholtzer - 2010

Every morning when I wake up… I have a choice, whether I’m going to focus on the beauty or the messiness.

At one time, I totally focused on the beauty.

Idealistic optimist.
Life really is sunshine and beauty.. and if I found a weed or two, I denied it and moved on, only focusing on the beauty.
Then Hurricane Reality hit my world.

Since I had no framework for how to deal with the messes in life, I didn’t.
But not acknowledging the messiness and the disappointments I lived with caused a rift in my soul and I sank into the dark lonely hole of depression.

And the pendulum swung…

Discouraged pessimist.
Life sucks. There is no good anywhere. It’s all messy and weedy. If a speck of beauty happened to come into my vision, I ignored it, like I earlier ignored the messiness.

I sank deeper into the unknown hole… and almost convinced myself there was no way out.

.
Balanced reality.
With help from others and by sitting in the sun, I begin to realize beauty and messiness can live side by side. I allowed myself to be renewed and refreshed from the inside out. I throw away both extremes and find balance and hope by learning how to…
Celebrate the beauty while being honest about the messiness.

And life with both was beautiful, just like the picture above.

For a time the balance was easy to find… I saw beauty. I saw messiness. I felt beauty. I processed the messiness. And it resulted in an honest reality. I was hopeful and I shared hope.

.

But recently my own messiness, life and hormones* have made it harder to focus on the beauty. I seem to notice the messy things of life first and have a quick reaction to them.

But the choice is still mine… every minute of every day, I have the privilege of deciding if I am going to focus on the beauty or the mess.

Somedays I make better choices than others.

Every life is a blend of beauty and messiness. And everyone deserves to have their beauty noticed more than their messiness.

Everyone. Whether they are 1 or 100. Whether they’ve made good choice or bad choices. Whether they use sunscreen or not. Whether they find hope in this world or in a world beyond. Whether I like them or not.

I need to take time to evaluate, think and to be cautious about my focus and my reaction. Not to deny reality, because messiness needs to be acknowledged and at times it needs to be addressed. If the weeds at the beach weren’t kept at bay, they could block out the sunrise. But I need to realize my first reaction may or may not be the wisest.

Breathe in… breathe out.

Be realistic about both the beauty and messiness.

Focus on the beauty.
*Not making excuses, but dealing with my reality, I’m in my mid-40′s and hormones change… and if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that ignoring reality doesn’t work.
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  • Rachel

    I loved this! Thank you for sharing.

  • http://kclanderson.com/ KCLAnderson (Karen)

    I feel your pain Janet…hormones exacerbate everything! I’ve been struggling with anxiety and now a subset of depression called anhedonia (I blogged about it recently). I guess knowing that it’s temporary helps a bit. I highly recommend Dr. Christiane Northrup’s book, The Wisdom of Menopause.

  • http://www.JanetOberholtzer.com Janet Oberholtzer

    Ah Karen… thanks for this info and your post is helpful. 
    It’s so nice to know it should be temporary… because I don’t like me when I’m critical and neither do others, especially my family.

  • Pkallal

    Thanks for being so honest, Janet. Makes it easier for the rest of us to admit that our messes are pretty ugly sometimes. That’s the “beauty” of life, learning and growing. I’ve just come off a season of alot of tears (well, I hope I’m off). Disappointments in things (people) that I thought were “due” to me. I’m learning to love the differences we all have, and that it’s not usually about me:) funny how we learn from the very things we thought we knew so much about! I’m living (trying) in the beautiful moments God gives me each day, messy or not! Ahhhhh, yes hormones, that’s a topic for another day!!!

  • http://www.JanetOberholtzer.com Janet Oberholtzer

    Thanks Patti! 
    Sorry about your tearful season… hope you are out of it or at least that you can find some moments of beauty during it.

  • Lynne Babbitt-Bartels

    Great article on such an important concept! But what do we call it? I used to say “Balance,” but it really isn’t exactly balance…to see both sides. Then I switched to “yin/yang” but lots of people don’t seem to get that. Now I talk about how we need to find the healthy path in the middle and stay out of the ditches on either side, but I wish there were one good word for that!