Monday Mitzvah: Go green in your mind with an attitude of gratitude

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.”  Dale Carnegie

Last week as I was working on my guerrilla good deed to stop complaining, I became acutely aware of how much negativity there is in our world. We are inundated with bad news. The stock market is plummeting. Gas prices are rising. Homes are foreclosing. The Feds are taking over banks. People are losing their retirement. It is all really scary.

Complaining is a common denominator. We can connect on bad news because it is so prevalent. However, complaining about how bad things are is like adding more waste to an already overflowing landfill. It is interesting that there is so much attention given to going green in our homes yet no discussion about going green in our relationships. The mantra of the green movement is reduce, reuse and recycle. Reduce your consumption, reuse what you already have and recycle your waste.

For this Monday Mitzvah let’s focus on the reduce component. And by reduce I mean reducing the negativity in our minds. Let’s reduce our consumption of negativity. Take a week off from the news and allow your mind to detox. I have a family member who watches Fox news 15 hours a day. As a result he thinks we have reached the end of times. It sounds like that when you watch the news. California is on fire; the mid-west is flooded; the artic is melting. Pretty soon we will be able to buy oceanfront property in Reno.

My challenge to you this week is to greenify your mind by not polluting it with any negativity. Just like farmers rotate their crops to allow the soil to mend this week purify your minds with something positive. One strategy for greenifying your mind is to adopt an attitude of gratitude. It may sound trite but it really works. You can’t be negative or fearful and be grateful at the same time. Our minds can’t hold two opposing thoughts. Every time a negative thought, complaint or fear rises up in your mind this week think about what you are grateful for in the situation.

Often things that seem horrible at the time turn out to be blessings in the long run. It is like the old story of the poor farmer who lived alone with his one son. They were poor and lived a hard life. One day their only horse ran away. Their fellow villagers lamented saying, “What will you do now? That was your only horse. How will you farm your land? You are so unlucky.”

To this the poor farmer said, “We’ll see.”

A few days later the farmer’s horse came back bringing with it a wild horse. And the villagers said, “Now you have two horses to work your land. You’re so lucky!”

And the farmer said, “We’ll see.”

The next day the farmer’s son was taming the wild horse when he was thrown from her back and broke his leg. And the villagers said, “Now who will help you work your land? That is your only son. How unlucky!”

And the farmer said, “We’ll see.”

A few days later the army came through town. They were there to draft all the able-bodied young men to fight in a distant war for their emperor. All the young men of the village, except for the poor farmer’s injured boy, were taken away. The villagers watched as their children were taken away. They looked at the poor farmer and his boy and said, “You’re so lucky.”

And the farmer said, “We’ll see.”

And so it goes. Be grateful this week. You never know what is going to turn out to be a blessing in disguise.