I woke up this morning with a choice. I could go on my Iphone and see Donald Trump whining and lying again, or I could go outside and see what the sun was doing with my flowers. I made the right choice.
I felt peace and contentment seconds later.
When I look at a sunrise, gasp at the beauty of nature, or sit with a cat on my shoulder purring, the beauty around me touches and lifts me deeply.
I can go online and read some cruel message about my dyslexia or my writing “Bud” when it should be “Zip,” or I can sit with Bud on my lap or Zip on my shoulder and feel the love of animals and their mystery.
It’s a choice. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice.
I can read the news and learn of the disasters, cruelty, and greed that beset the human race, or I can get my camera out and capture the beautiful landscape around me.
I can grieve the greed and ignorance of humanity’s slow but study ruin on our earth, or I can get in touch with the beauty of nature around me and concentrate more deeply on the sunset that will reveal itself to me. I can look at flowers.
I can write and read angry messages on social media or feel my happiness grow tenfold in seconds.
There is beauty before me and everyone else if we want to stop, think, and look for it. There is healing and happiness in doing good; the more good I do, the less worry and anger I feel.
When I take a picture of a beautiful flower, I feel my body react, my anxiety melts, and my anger floats away. The sound of a songbird is as beautiful as anything on Apple Music, much as I love to listen to songs there in the evening.
It’s a choice. I can choose what is before me. I can love my wife, daughter, and granddaughter instead of just the news.
This is the practice of joy and beauty. I always have a choice: turn to the dark or the light. I feel my breathing slower, calmer, and more profound. I find myself and my heart gentler and full of compassion and gratitude. It’s a choice, my choice.
It’s my choice, and I make it every day, often more than once. I am responsible for my life, not any politician, priest, or broken person with a computer.
I never knew that these choices influenced my body so clearly and intensely. I can feel it every day.
Thanks Jon for reminding us of the deliberate choices we can make each day to cherish the true, good and beautiful when faced with a very toxic damaged world. The flower phots are like positive visual vitamins to help. Thank you.
Thank you, Marry, for a beautiful message, it means a lot to me…
Your flower portraits are intimate and personal and make it easy to have a conversation with them.
Thanks for reminding us that being happy or sad is our own personal choice. So often life gets in the way and we forget. I’d much rather be happy tonight and tomorrow as well so I’m making up my mind that for the next 24 hours absolutely nothing will sadden me. Thanks again.
Steve in Alabama
Thank you, Jon. I needed to read that. I have reset my day, accordingly.
The flowers in this post have to be my favorites , and believe me I didn’t think anything could be more beautiful than your previous ones. These REALLY resonate, and look so vibrant and engaged with us !
My new mantra is ,” Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice. ” Thank you for reiterating that so it eventually sinks in to those of us that need it.
As you wrote…. Bud…. Zip confusion. I learned a long time ago that”mistakes” simply represent a way to let “spirits” enter and leave something. This first happened when I screwed up hanging a piece of wallpaper in our kitchen. I pointed it out to a friend and she told me above allowing the spirits to enter or leave the room. Since then, I have given the spirits many opportunities to leave or enter my work. Bless you and Maria and the Army of Good.
About books I suspect you have read. OK. But if not the Navajo police mysteries by Tony Hillerman have, without even explicitly suggesting it, made me respectful and curious about Navajo et al culture. His autobiography makes me ecstatic to think such people existed.