Finding the Joy in Life During Extraordinary Times

"Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just ordinary people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise.... Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride." ~ Jenkin Lloyd Jones

I kinda don't know how I feel about this quote.  

It's a good quote.  There's truth in it.  And life definitely has its hardships and unpredictability.  This year is proof of that.

Two thought:

I've been watching a lot of Frank James YouTube videos.  They're all about personality, personality skits, stuff about Introversion, and understanding INFJ's.  I'm still skeptical about this stuff, but it's interesting, and stuff does ring true at times.  Anywho, he has a video called "Be the Author of Your Life...",  and he share's a good metaphor talking about stories, and that no author writes a story in which their main character doesn't experience hardship.  All good stories have character growth, and in our stories we need to have growth as well, and that means going through stuff of the not fun variety.  We need to be willing to grow, and our lives will be more interesting because of it.

And, well, if you haven't noticed on my blog I have a close relationship with my Mom.  We're family and friends.  But we're also different in many ways.  She declared a couple days ago that she's going to be an optimist again.  She's a natural optimist.  I'm the cynical realist, which is often confused for negativity.  It's the cause of occasional debate.   (Honesty isn't negativity, just saying).  Needless to say, she's always been really positive, but these last several months have stolen that from her, and she's determined to not let the World ruin her spark.  

So although I agree in part with the above quote, and there's good things to take from it, where's the line between acceptance and challenging current circumstances for the better?  Believing that more, good things are possible?

Life has its difficulties.  Life has its challenges.  Life can swallow you up.  But life is also beautiful.  Life has its moments of glimmer.  Despite everything life can still be wonderful.  Life is wonderful.

We may not be where we want to be at times, many times, but there are still so many little things that make life grand.

So I'm going to work on being a little more optimistic myself.  Challenging times can make us weak or make us strong.  We are the authors of our lives.  Let's create in ourselves great characters in our life's story.  Within myself I'm learning to distinguish that which I can't immediately change verses that which I can challenge so I can grow to become a better person.  And I'm going to find the beautiful, extraordinary, hopeful side of life and believe in all that is wonderful in the World.