Meditative Monday- In Which I Roll from One Quote to the Next!

Initially, I had thought that I would continue in the same vein as last week- discussing little snail’s journey from the point of view of direction. However, with it being Thanksgiving week, two quotes are walking around arm in arm in my mind grinning at me.

“If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get.” Frank A. Clark

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln

Of course I have days that are just downright overemotional in truly negative ways- frustrating or infuriating, difficult or downright dreadful. If I didn’t, if I were detached from and unaffected by my surroundings and the people in them, then I would not be human. An emotionally healthy person does not live without feeling the impact of unpleasantness. In spite of this, to dwell on this unpleasantness would be like tending the thistle rather than the rose. As Frances Hodgson Burnett put it in The Secret Garden:

One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live…
Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.
Where, you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow.

As a whole when looking at my existence, I can choose to be thankful and happy. But, oh my goodness (LOL), this has indeed led me back to little snail’s journey!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.” Dr. Seuss

As I steer through this journey, rather than choose to wallow in the excrement, I make up my mind to tend with thankfulness and happiness the abundance of good fortune.