Glimmers of Beauty

There was a quote in the first season of Westworld that I recently saw someone shared that I had forgotten. Charlotte (Delores, Christina, etc) said, "Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty."  Now... she's changed quite a bit over the seasons and last season there was little beauty in her mind, but they might be bringing back the more positive version for this season.  But, I wanted to use that quote for this blog about finding glimmers of beauty.

I am adding more and more people to my social media every week, so many don't know my stories.  I don't need to go into all of them, but suffice to say that I have faced my share of challenges from financial to romantic to family and more.  But, I've also had many successes and joys over those years.  It was within the last year that I really learned how to separate the good from the bad and accept the good.  A big part of that was learning that in many breakups we are really mad at OURSELVES for allowing us to be hurt... for taking those risks and being vulnerable, which is why we put those walls back up.  Yes, there are bad people out there, but the reality is that we lose faith in OURSELVES to keep us safe, so we don't even take the risks.

Once you learn that and become able to forgive ourselves for what happened, we can not only drop those guards but accept the GOOD in the periods that we tend to condemn in bulk.  We say that EVERYTHING connected to that person was bad, because it ended in pain. However, was that true?  No.  In fact, there were many good experiences that I had with that person.  I choose her for good reasons, and there many times of good, before it ended.  The reality is that we all were a part of it.. the causes for the beginning, the joys of the middle, and the causes for the end.  However, my experience is that few are able to make that distinction... they don't say, "How did I fail?"  They don't say, "Well, I took the leap knowing there is risks." No... we say, "How dare he/she hurt me like this," when it is probably true that they are hurting, also.

I used to say that success or failure has nothing to do with the value of the attempt, and that is true looking backwards, as well.  Even if it ultimately failed, we can value much of the attempt, partially because WE were involved in the attempt.... it wasn't just them, but some of our best qualities were in that attempt.  We shouldn't throw those out with the period, or we find ourselves having to start all over.  In teaching, that don't want you to reinvent the wheel but learn to use the lesson plans of others and our own and adapt.  If you reject your past, you have to go back to the beginning to rebuild.  But, if you are able to see the good in your past, you can start years ahead of where you would, otherwise.  

To not see the good in things that fail, you will see your whole life as a failure.  But, if you can see the good, you can see your life had challenges mixed into a life filled with glimmers of beauty.  I find that there is beauty all around me.. and I don't just mean the women (ha) but there's plenty of that, too.  There is kindness in the heart of children, purity in nature, and even beauty in the natural cycle of pain and in the refining fire of darkness and tragedy, though that takes much long for some to see if they see it at all.  But.. wouldn't you rather see life as an adventure, instead of a tragedy?