Silver Linings
There has been quite a lot of snow in the UK over the last month or so. Although when I say ‘quite a lot’, I really mean ‘a little bit’, but Britain is completely incapable of dealing with snow and so even a light dusting of snow stops everyone in their tracks and creates travel chaos. Generally, because we’re so bad at clearing snow from roads and pavements it rapidly becomes extremely icy and people then don’t want to leave their houses for fear of falling over or crashing their car. When this happens, everyone over the age of about 20 moans incessantly. Never mind the pretty snow – how are we supposed to get anything done when we can’t get out and about?
And it’s not just snow that causes this kind of annoyance and complaining about unproductiveness. How often do we find ourselves blaming other things for our inactivity?
But why should we let snow, or anything else, determine what we are getting out of life at any given time? So perhaps you can’t go out in the snow and do whatever it is that you desperately wanted to do. But whilst you’re sitting around at home thinking about how frustrating the snow is, others are taking the opportunity to do things that they wouldn’t usually get a chance to. Perhaps they’re reading that book that they bought months earlier and never had time to read, or they’re using the time to call and catch up with family members who they haven’t spoken to in years.
For people who choose to see the negative effects of events, the events in question will always cause self-fulfilling prophecies. Whilst you sit around thinking about how much time is being wasted, you are wasting your own time thinking when you could be doing instead. People who always take this negative approach waste literally weeks, months, or even years of their lives bemoaning the fact that they aren’t doing anything productive whilst doing nothing to proactively change it.
But, of course, this time does not have to be lost. Instead of a waste, it can be seen as an opportunity. An opportunity to do something different, and to utilise every moment of life in a positive way.
As the saying goes...
Every cloud has a silver lining…
