P IS FOR POOL

Given the time of year, I would like to say that this post is going to be all about this kind of pool:

image found here

However, that is not the case. You have to watch this clip from one of my all-time favorite movies (and musicals) to get where this post is going. It is from THE MUSIC MAN starring Robert Preston. I cannot tell you how many times I have watched it, though not recently. Anyway, this is one of my favorite scenes for oh so many reasons.

Oh, we got trouble right here in River City, with a capital T, that rhymes with P, and stands for Pool. Masstyria. Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground.

And my personal favorite is at the very beginning: River City isn't in any trouble. Well, then we have to create some.

And so it goes.

I have had several conversations on a variety of topics in recent days that all lead back to the same thing. People create trouble to get what they want. You can have a perfectly wonderful system in place and someone will come along and abuse it. Why? Because they can. Because they are manipulative, lazy, scheming, etc. There are a whole host of reasons.

The thing is this: you cannot change it. For instance, there will always be people trying to get Social Security Disability who can work. There will be people who get Disability who couldn't work, but then can work, but choose not to go back to work. Or they go back to work under the table and continue to get the Disability money while working. If you allow your brain to dwell on these things, you stay fixed in the land of negativity. That is not a good place to live.

One of my Facebook friends, who I don't really know, posted something in her status the other day about appreciation. She said that the more she appreciates each thing in her life, the more things there are to appreciate. That was a bit of a jolt for me. I knew that already, but I wasn't doing it. I wasn't feeling appreciative. I was still feeling mostly pissed that my dad didn't live the 6-9 months that they gave him. He only stuck around for three. I wanted more time and I wasn't appreciating the fact that he left me so soon. In fact, I was still pretty upset about it. We are having thunderstorms almost every day and that gives me killer migraines. Not appreciating that so much. My cycle has been coming every two weeks since February. Really not appreciating that. My hormonal imbalance is tipped all the way over. Can we say that the migraines are just killing me? So, yeah, my appreciation levels have been LOW.

However, when I read that status, I remembered that negative builds on negative and positive builds on positive. I can keep my focus on everything I just wrote that I am really not happy about, or I can find one thing each day that pleases me, and think on that. And think on it and think on it and think on it. And if that is the only thing I have, I stick with it. Maybe it is just listening to songs that make me happy. Or watching MY NAME IS EARL because it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. Or playing with my dog. Or reading a good book. Honestly, it doesn't matter what it is so long as it is positive.

Remember, my friends, listen to me, because I pass this way but once!