Have you done a reality checked lately on the current condition of your life? Are you blessed, happy, or depressed, hopeless and in despair? What you choose to focus on will become your reality. To be blessed means to be happy, to be fortunate, or to be envied. Perhaps you are one of those people who are on the journey to experiencing your best life ever. However, we are surrounded by people everyday, including
some of us who are not enjoying this precious gift of life. Some may equate being blessed or happy to mean that they have achieved all their material possessions or luxuries. While those things can contribute to life's pleasure, it is not what defines a blessed life. There are those who have all the material possessions one could dream of, but have miserable lives with out hope or vision for the future.
God's desire is that we prosper, be in health even as our soul prospers (3John 2). We can live a life of abundance and happiness, but why don't we? What is the difference? The difference is our focus, our attitudes, and thoughts. Our thoughts eventually become our actions and what we focus on becomes our reality. If you are not happy with the reality of your current circumstance, it's time to you change your focus or refocus. The definition of focus is: a central point, as of attraction, attention; the core, the heart.
Life constantly throws choices at you everyday and whatever choices you make are seeds that will shape your future. Make no mistake, you are your choices. The law of gravity says, whatever goes up, must come down. This is also true, for every cause, there is an effect. To every action, there is a reaction. Whatever you sow, you will reap. These are laws or principals set in motion, a universal law regardless if you are black or white, rich or poor, Christian or non-Christian. If you sow negative thoughts everyday, and speak pessimistically over your situation, you will experience negative outcomes.
Have you ever been around someone who rarely ever has anything positive to say? If they can't complain about the weather, they'll grumble about their weight, if that's not enough, they'll murmur about their spouse, or kids and so forth. They will start to blame everyone and everything for why they are they way they are. Their parents abandoned them, their friends betrayed them, and they never get beyond these negative experiences. Instead they wallow in their sorrow and come to believe that life dealt them a bad hand and that this is their fate. This is not intended to be unsympathetic for those who have had horrible upbringings. If that was you, there is hope for a bright and blessed future.
Consider Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor; one cannot imagine what he had to endure, but has lived to tell how he was able to survive the inhumane concentration camps. His focus and his attitude allowed him to endure the darkest moments of his life. Mr. Frankl quotes, "The last of human freedoms, the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances." Regardless of what you are going through or have gone through, you have the freedom to choose your attitude. Your attitude will determine your altitude in life. Your circumstances do not dictate your fate, your choices do.
I would like to illustrate a couple of choices that were made by two individuals that altered the course of their lives forever. One renowned individual named Walt Disney, must we say more about what his name represents in the world today? We hear Walt Disney, and we instantly see Mickey Mouse or Walt Disney World's theme park in our minds. The truth is, Walt Disney was not a success over night. Perhaps you have not heard the story behind his name. Walt and his brothers experienced physical abuse by their father growing up. In order to fulfill void and emptiness during this time in his life, Walt would draw imaginary characters to pass time.
He started a business out of his uncle's garage when he was eighteen years old, creating a cartoon character named "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" and sold the animation to Universal Studios. These cartoons were a hit in that era. By selling the character, Walt did not realize that he also signed away ownership of his creation. When it was time to renew his contract, Universal Studios proclaimed their rights to the cartoon and declined to renew Walt's contract. Can you imagine? This was his livelihood, his big break-so he thought! Not only did he give away his hard work, but he is now jobless! What could possibly be in store for young Walt? I am sure he went through feelings of betrayal, discouragement, and hopelessness to name a few. But would Walt be Walt Disney World today, if he lamented in his situation for long?
Walt Disney had to refocus; he went back to the drawing board. He remembered drawing in his uncle's garage as mice surrounded him, running around all over his desk while he was working. He was so lonely that he even thought of these little creatures as his friends. He even put one of them in a cage near his work space and named him Mickey, thus the Mickey Mouse cartoon was born and the rest was history! This was evident that Walt didn't allow this negative situation that he experienced to be the center of his focus or at least not for long. It's obvious he made a decision to turn his lemon into lemonade and what he chose to do next with his focus eventually became his reality, and changed the lives of millions of kids all over the globe. There are hundreds of other similar real life stories of how others have turned their tragedies into triumphs resulting in blessed, happy, and fortunate lives; leaving a legacy and inspiring others that they too, can rise above their negative circumstances no matter how bad the situation is.
Sadly, my next story of how one's focus becomes reality is tragic. I once read about group of men who worked together on a train and were dismissed early one day. One of the men was usually a worry wart and always feared many things. On this day, as the workers left for the day, this man accidentally got locked in a freezer of the train he worked on. He immediately began to have thoughts of freezing to death so he began to write letters to his family. At one point, he wrote that he couldn't write anymore because his fingers were getting numb from freezing. When he was discovered by co-workers in the morning, he was dead. Autopsies had revealed that he indeed froze to death, but they also discovered that the temperature in the freezer was just less than sixty degrees Fahrenheit! How could it be that this man froze to death when the temperature never dropped to freezing? Could it be that his focus ultimately became his reality deciding his fate?
We all hear it over and over. Worry will kill you and what you think is what you will become. Your thoughts, your focus, and your attitude have the power to create your surroundings and change your situation whether for good or bad. What you choose to focus on will become your reality. Change your focus and change your life! Remember, "For as a man thinks within himself, so he is (Proverbs 23:7).
Walt Disney; Critical Choices that Change Lives (Beartooth Press, 2005) Daniel Castro
Viktor Frankl; thinkexist.com
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