What If...?

A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
 
     Mahatma Gandhi

What if ………..?????

• What if I can’t get a job when I graduate?
• What if my child was in an accident and I wasn’t around?
• What if I can’t afford to go to college?
• What if I can’t afford to send my kids to college?
• What if the money doesn’t come in and the bills add up?
• What if the doctor has bad news about my test results?
• What if global warming continues to increase and climate change becomes a real issue?
• What if the political candidate I choose doesn’t get voted into office?
• What if a tornado were to ravage my house?
• What if he doesn’t like me?
• What if they don’t take me seriously?
• What if I put myself out there and take a risk and the same thing happens to me again? 

What if……….?????

We are all good at the “What If’s?” Our minds take us so quickly to potential problems, losses, and disappointments. Even in good moments we have a hard time staying in those moments. Too easily we go to dark and forbidding places in our minds. We are experts at finding how and where and why something can go wrong. Why somebody won’t like us? Why the money won’t come in? Why things won’t go the way we need them to? It’s a common and prevalent human tendency. As Gandhi has said, what we mull over, think about, is exactly what we become.

So, what do we do about it? How do we overcome our descent into the doubting and the darkness? How do we become something more than our negativity and despair?

 We need to give ourselves and each other permission to believe again. To believe that things can and will work out for the best. To believe that goodness can and will come our way. To believe that our gifts and abilities won’t be wasted, that, in fact, they will be honored and shared.

 When the doubts creep in we need to find ways to see beyond them. We need to step back from the current story and take a broader, higher view of our circumstances and gain a bigger perspective. We need to recognize the good things where they occur and focus on them. We need to concentrate on the present moments at hand – the things that are well in our individual lives and in the world. We need to create moments of joy for ourselves, moments of respite from the challenges and negativity we experience.

 What if ………?????

 What if we dare to believe that we can get a good job, that there will be a way for the money to come in, that there are people who do like us, that some risks are worth taking and that the rewards can be real?

Photo by Simone Secci on Unsplash