The American Dream! We’re living it. Right? It’s wonderful. Everything is perfect. In fact, dissect my world and you’ll find nothing wrong. Right? How is that? Because I’m living the Wonderful Life!
Well. The reality is far from the truth. Pull back the covers of perceived perfection and you find that no one has perfection sewed up. We all have dirt in the corners, cobwebs in hard to reach places, and way too much stuff to simply call life wonderful.
My uncle sent an email yesterday comparing our view of hardships today (COVID-19), and how bad it was for his family just before he was born. The Great Depression. Grapes of Wrath kind of desperation. Dust Bowls. Deep poverty.
The stock market crashed in October 1929, and the Great Depression was off! Was it over quickly? Nope! It would last 10 full years!
To kick it off royally, in the very next year, 1930 – The Great Dust Bowl storm literally blew land from this state to the next. Devastation. Things were so desperate, they even had a motto.
Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.
The reality? Everything was collected and saved. Nothing was wasted. Everything was used. If not today, then someday. Hence, my granddad’s barn…and my garage.
What Makes Life Wonderful?
In the harshest of times, and often during those bleak years, people could still laugh, love, and enjoy one another’s company. Can you call that wonderful? Some do. Their perspective is not on their situation, rather, it’s on who they are living through rough times with.
People make life wonderful, not things!
Sometimes we think happiness comes when we win the prize, land that big job, or show off our grand lifestyle. Personally, I think not!
“Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.”
~Benjamin Franklin
Think about it. Does someone want to be dirt poor, homeless, a bum? Probably not. We are the Clampets now living with a cement pond in the back yard! Well. You choose your parameters, but I’m with the Apostle Paul. I’m content with whatever state I find myself in! (Philippians 4:11)
Maybe there are those who see that type of life as something better than what you and I accept as normal. Happiness is simply the “state of being happy”. What is Happy? “Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.
Hence, most of us can enjoy life without it being what some would call perfect.
The Apostle Paul stood before King Agrippa and started his discourse by saying: “I think myself happy…” (Acts 26:2) I love this phrase. Why? To me, happiness begins with me and comes from who I am.
Do you remember that song in the ‘70s that defined happiness as “Lubbock in my rearview mirror…”. There were many, I’m sure, who saw their town as a place of happiness. But not to Mac Davis!
Here’s My Thought Today
I am in control of my outlook. On life, circumstances, and dealing with whatever has been allowed on my plate. Some hard times come from life, or God, or they are simply a product of poor choices I’ve made in my own life.
Each of us has a mechanism to live a wonderful life, even when circumstances are far from perfect. Remember. None of us has a perfect life. Share on XThe writer of Hebrews, after the Faith chapter, begins his next stanza stating life like this:
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:1-2 (KJV)
Our job is to unload the heaviness that slows us down, then get into the race and simply run. But keep your eye on the example before us that points us to our great reward.
One Last Thing
None of us like to be around a gloomy Gus or someone with a constant negative personality. Perhaps a makeover of our own outlook will help others develop a better outlook. There’s nothing like finding someone with a ‘better outlook’ on life and learn how to become that kind of personality.
We all need a pattern to follow, and there are better examples around us every day.
Let me leave you with this poem by a Canadian poet, Archibald Lampman.
Outlook
Not to be conquered by these headlong days,
But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood
On life’s deep meaning, nature’s altitude
Of loveliness, and time’s mysterious ways;
At every thought and deed to clear the haze
Out of our eyes, considering only this,
What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,
This is to live, and win the final praise.
Though strife, ill fortune, and harsh human need
Beat down the soul, at moments blind and dumb
With agony; yet, patience—there shall come
Many great voices from life’s outer sea,
Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,
Murmurs and glimpses of eternity.