Sometimes it’s hard to stay positive. We try our hardest for the people we love, and oftentimes everything seems to blow up in our faces. The more we try to help, we seem to hurt. The more we try to ease broken hearts, the more we break them. The more we try to accomplish, the more glaring is all that’s left undone.
I had been in a funk the last couple of days. It seemed like absolutely nothing was going right. I kept reminding myself to focus on progress rather than perfection. It eased some of my frustration but still left me feeling unmotivated burnt out.
Then I decided to focus on something different today. Today I told myself that I would try to make my world beautiful.
I’m not a very visual person. In fact, it is very likely that I might be the least visual person in the entire universe. My mind just doesn’t work that way. So when I decided to focus on beauty, it wasn’t just physical beauty I was seeking out — it was my kind of beauty. It was the things that speak to my soul. The things that make me feel alive. The things that motivate me to strive.
And the more I sought out beauty, the more I found it.
I found beauty in
…the letters I was painting pink for Mae’s bedroom.
…the corners of my house that I carefully vacuumed. For me, a whole house can be a mess, but if the corners are clean, it just feels clean.
…the look of the two older girls as they bounded into Best Buy. Magoo was in her school uniform and Goose was in her Merida outfit. They were giggling and talking and bouncing.
…the way that Mae snuggled into the crook of my arm as I read to her.
…the looks on their faces as they saw the two ducks waddling through our front yard.
…the new book I’m reading about Pope John Paul II and the fascinating glimpse it gives me of a different time and a different place and a remarkable way of conducting a life.
…the stories I read across the internet of the slow triumph of perseverance over adversity.
Beauty can be physical. We can make our environments as pretty as we would like. It is inspiring and it is comforting. But beauty can also be more than that. To me, beauty is truth and authenticity. It’s connecting with what makes us human. It’s elegance and eloquence and light hearted laughter. It’s about what makes us unique and what makes us the same.
Beauty is anything that makes our heart sing. And if we spend our days looking for it, we just might find it.
What is beautiful to you? I’d love to hear.