Choice

from Lori


Choice. It seems like such a simple word...and yet how many times have we made the wrong one?

My husband and I just had a really crazy holiday season. You see, I work in film as an Art Director and he works as a Journalist for a London based News Agency. Two important points you'll see later, as we started off the holidays in rather good spirits until the impact of those two worlds came crashing down on us. Firstly, anyone who works in the film industry right now KNOWS the impact of the writer's strike. While I support them 100% --along with everyone else I know in the business--we are all taking a personal financial loss right now because of it, as there isn't any work, as productions have literally stopped (especially as I am a Union member). Add to that my husband works for a company that pays once a month (normal practice in Europe)...on the 24th to be exact. So while our spirits were high for a great holiday season, our pocket book had been stretched to the limit. Suffice to say, my unemployment benefits and his once a month pay leads to pretty tight life right now, but we're surviving...until there was a mix up with his pay in December (long story short, two people thought the other was wiring the money in the accounting dept.--a problem that could of been easily remedied in any other month then December with an email or call--except in December they shut down the office for the last two weeks of the month!) Imagine our surprise at this new development when we realized what had happened. In a matter of a week our holiday spirit turned from joy to annoyance realizing where that left us. Unfortunately, we suddenly found ourselves in quite a bad head space, only to be made worse when we realized that nothing could be remedied until after the new year. Merry Christmas indeed!

When we regaled our new situation to family and friends, we were quite surprised by the response. Firstly every single person that we told offered to loan us money to get us through the season. We did not take the offers, but it was really quite nice to realize how many people cared about us and wanted to make our holiday better. I would like to point out that when this happened we told people out of shock and bewilderment at how our holiday had changed, there was no other agenda, so having the out pouring of care and wanting to help we suddenly realized that our holiday was better this year then any other year previous, THAT was what the holiday spirit was all about! Secondly, I am also a painter and previous to this happening, I had been in negotiations for two months on the sale of one of my works with a friend; suddenly he purchased the work without knowing the situation. One door closes, another opens, as it were...It is not often that we get such a lesson.

So how does choice come into all of this? When we realized how we really were blessed with the holiday spirit, we made a conscious CHOICE to make sure that we kept that wonderful feeling going. We decided that EVERYDAY we would look for something GOOD that happened...just one good thing (that is not much)! I know it seems so trite and yet that one good thing has had an amazing transformation on our lives. Everyday something good happens! We even laugh at the end of the day as we sum up that goodness. All because we made the choice to look for something good in our daily life. Try it, challenge yourself to acknowledge one good thing a day...suddenly things don't seem so bad when you add them up! Choose goodness.