Going Up or Down

"He stands erect by bending over the fallen. He rises by lifting others." -Douglas Horton

During this current business trip that I am on, every morning and every evening I use the elevator. It either lowers me to the ground floor so that I may have my breakfast. At night it lifts me to my floor so I may sleep away the day's tiredness.

Most every one of these days I cross a threshold where the sliding doors open and close. A recorded voice warns me of both their opening and impending closing. The voice asks me to select my floor number and announces it when we arrive. It is an elevator that seems to take care in taking care of others.

Recently one morning, I happened to notice the name on the threshold. The name was Otis and for some reason I connected the name to the recorded voice. It was amusing to me as the voice of the elevator is a female voice. I thought to myself, her name is Otis; amusing only to me I would guess.

Every day, hour upon hour and minutes upon minutes, people walk over Otis. But never a complaint, never a worry or concern. Otis continues to serve the needs of others without a loss of voice or strength. Otis will lower you safely from the highest floors, placing your feet on solid ground. This fine elevator will also lift you up when you have had a hard day and need rest.

Each of us can be like Otis in our daily lives. We can help lower others to the solid safety of the ground. When others have gotten to the edge of destruction in their lives, we can offer a safe elevator to come back down and regather themselves.

We can also provide the extra lift in their lives when the day has gotten them down. They can rise in spirit and comfort as we ask them which floor they wish to get to. We then safely lift them and open the doors to a new and greater place.

Otis is simply an elevator, mechanical and pre-programmed. You are not. But you can help people down from the scariest of heights and lift them as well to wondrous new levels.

You have the ability to bring a human connection into the picture. You have the ability to be an elevator to others. So which floor would you like please?

London Fog

"Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us." -Henri Matisse

There are days when all we do seems to be shrouded in a heavy blanket of fog. Our mind is trying to clear out the haze in order to get a better view on our lives. Yet the thickness of what troubles us gets in the way.

Sometimes those days are due to our own negative way of thinking. We get down on ourselves, on what is happening in our life and on those around us. These are the days when the fog is thickest in our lives.

Even when it sets in like this, you need to find small things to help guide you. Little bits of positive lights that will mark the path you are on. The level of happiness we decide to shower upon our life will determine the amount of illumination that will guide us through the fog.

Do not allow the fog to burden your travel or to dampen the spirit within. Use the heaviness of that fog to heighten and focus your attention on the happiness and goodness. Allow it to make you more of aware what is important in your life.

Soon enough the fog will lift and the rest of this great world will once again be revealed. Stay inspired both in and out of the fog.

Get Out Of Bed

"In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning." -Carl Sandburg

Today I picked up a few local papers here in London and the headlines are not good. There are antibiotic-resistant infections spreading through Europe. The fashion world is stunned by a high-fashion robbery. We see mass arrests at Occupy protests and the U.N. Nuclear chief says we "must alert the world" about Iran.

There is so much going on that we can become overwhelmed by it all. An old saying that the world is "going to hell in a hand basket" feels so real to many people. At times we would prefer to remain hidden under the covers of our bed. Maybe if we just sleep in longer, all of the turmoil will pass.

It is redundant to say this, but the world has been going "to hell in a hand basket" since the beginning of time. There is always some issue, some disaster, something bad to report about. The fact is that we are going through a tough time right now and all of our senses are heightened.

What makes it even more profound this time and each time a down period occurs, is that bad news sells. As an example, take this article discussion from 2007 by David Blanchard. In it, the headline in question paints a gloomy forecast. But the actual news is rather positive. Lenna Gonya writes that "...while these stories may sell, they don’t do much to improve our moods, our depression, or our outlook on life. More than ever, people are discovering that they are less and less optimistic about life, and the news may be a contributing factor."

Do not get me wrong, there are a lot of bad things happening in the world today. But most surely there are a lot of good things happening out there as well. We need to understand that goodness does exist and that "getting out of bed" is a good and great thing. There are a lot of good things going on in life that we need to focus on.

Yes, we have to be mindful and concerned of the hardships that exist. But we can not allow that type of thinking to rule the day. If we do, clean water will cease to exist, nations will destory each other, cancer will never be defeated and the universe will never be understood.

Possibility exists in our hopes and dreams. It exists in the optimism that greater things can happen in our lives and the lives of others. Possibility exists and that my friends is the good news.

Forgiveness and Rocks

"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom." -Hannah Arendt

So how often have you walked around in life holding the pain of some past offense? Do you feel offended and carry it with you like a badge of honor, showing all the world your misery?

Why not let forgiveness enter your life and give you the power to move? Why not simply let it go?

We pull our wagon of rocks around ever increasingly heavy with the burden of real and perceived hurt. We just can't seem to let it go. The rocks pile ever higher in our world and our struggle to keep pulling the wagon gets worse and worse.

If we allow ourselves to forgive, inside our hearts and mind, then we are set free from our burden. It allows us to toss those rocks from our wagon and lighten the load that only we have allowed in our lives.

Give forgiveness to those and to yourself; move on in life.