Focus on positive key to contentment

Page 7

First Person

When I was heavily into weight-lifting years ago, an important virtue my mentors taught was patience. If I were to look in a mirror every day and expect huge results, they'd say I'd quickly become disappointed. Muscle-building is a slow process.

They emphasized significant amounts of progress were best measured in years - not hours, weeks or months. I swore never to forget that lesson.

I have!!

When life goes from smooth sailing to stormy seas, it's easy to get discouraged

and list all the things we think would patch us up. How hard it is to be thankful for what we have and can accomplish rather than dwell upon what is lacking or lost.

For myself, I admit the main reason I occasionally dive in melancholic moods (thank God they are rare) results from setting sky-high goals and getting frustrated when they don't materialize quickly enough.

They say we appreciate the good times because of the bad ones. Lord knows

how depressed I felt prior to the week-end. You know how it goes, it's the same old story. Young man ponders whether future career plans will work out or not. If so, do they include romance...this and that. Give me a break.

These useless musings can drag anybody down. I knew therapy was needed.

Fast. And it came in a most refreshing way.

I've just returned from chaperoning a camping trip to beautiful Ojibway Park with an enthusiastic group of 55 teenagers from Wellington Junior High School in Sioux Lookout, Ont.

For three days, we fished, hiked trails, listened to loons, called various species of wildlife to us and gazed dreamily into the glowing embers of burning campfires at night. And this with the large, cozy interior of my father's tipi as headquarters.

In the evenings, when kids asked Dad serious questions about Native culture, I was pleasantly reminded of my own youthful beginnings in the quest for knowledge. Over the years, I learned to love myself and therefore all living creatures.

We could all learn more from our kin. Immersing myself in a totally synchronized and serene environment was an unbeatable solution to my problem.

Unfortunately, due to today's demands of keeping up the social pace, it isn't always possible to escape to the boonies.

I have fond memories of long winter nights I spent writing at home in Calgary. About what? Absolutely anything that crossed my mind. It didn't matter, so long as I released the pent up trash in my head.

Just as people weed their gardens, it is equally important we also "weed out" our minds.

This reminds me of a story. A little boy stuck his hand in a gumball machine, trying to get some candies. After some attempts, he succeeded in grasping a few. Yet, when his friends came by and tried to get him to come out and play, he found he couldn't follow them. His hand was caught because he still wanted the sweets. He missed the fun his friends were having.

You can only learn from the past. Try hanging on to previous mistakes and your "soul" companions will become despondency, sorrow and grief. It's not worth it. Why waste energy on the negative when there is so much beauty around us?

In this age, what's really nice to know is that no matter how favourable or bad sour situations, we are never alone. Though captains of our individual ships, the same oceans bond us.

Gazing out the porch window on the gorgeous sunny morning, memories of the way I was feeling merely days ago now seem puny and unimportant. I have millions of things to be thankful for: good health, a loving family, a burgeoning new writing career - the list goes on.

I'll absorb a lesson from the animals, who never have time to sit around and mope all day - they are too busy living life to the fullest. Now I know what my elders meant when they said to keep the balance.

Guess what, my friends. Life is good.