“With gratitude optimism is sustainable,” Michael J. Fox.  Sometimes we need a reminder that things can look pretty crappy on the outside and still be ok.  Not everyone is meant to deal with the same scenarios we are and we aren’t meant to deal with everything someone else is—we are uniquely equipped to handle our lives even if we think we can’t.  There are stories we don’t want to handle, things we don’t want to experience, some things we don’t even want to witness—but if we are handed that card, then it is ours to play.  We have choices no matter how challenging, difficult, ugly, impossible, uncomfortable a situation may seem, but as we hold that card, it is for us to manage.  I’m not going to be trite and say it all happens for a reason because there are things that happen that just don’t make sense.  I’m also not going to say it all feels good or that it is easy to deal with because we understand the big picture will make sense.  No, sometimes things happen in life that suck—and we can’t change it.  The only thing we can manage in those situations is our outlook.  We can handle our responses.  We can handle the challenges. 

When we are grateful, we see options.  And look, I know that in the thick of things going down, it isn’t easy to be grateful.  Crisis of any kind is raw and causes pain (or any other emotion).  As we are cut and have to staunch the bleeding, when we are hurt or dealing with an initial impact, we need to stop that blood first.  When we focus on what’s going right and what resources we have available, it’s easier to see those options and choices.  When we are grateful we embrace our ability to fly through the storm rather than relying on the branch to hold us.  With everything my family and I have experienced this summer, I will not pretend that it doesn’t hurt, that loss isn’t hard, that things happen that we don’t understand.  All of those things are real and they can break people down.  But when we are grateful for the lesson we add a tool to our repertoire.  We learn to integrate and accept the hurt as part of the lesson and add another tool to our belt.  The pain (or whatever we feel) still exists, what happened still happened, but it doesn’t run our decisions. 

Optimism and gratitude are high energy and it does take a lot to maintain that state.  So when we choose to look at the positive in the negative, we create a broader vision we can use it long term.  As I said on Sunday, we seek to understand and learn and utilize our skills as a means to guide our lives and form connections with people/places/things while we are here.  When we experience things we don’t understand, we seek to make it fit in the puzzle, so looking at those pieces with gratitude makes it easier to find the fit.  If you ask how we can be grateful for those things, I say this: even those parts (pieces) that feel crappy/painful/raw/sharp-edged/scary/unclear are part of the big picture.  We need those pieces to make the story we are experiencing.  And just because it doesn’t look like it fits at first, it may be part of someone else’s story that needs to cross with ours, or it may be a piece that brings us into contact with the person who has a piece we are looking for—or the person we are to provide a piece for.  It’s all part of the grand scheme.  And above all, as we are grateful and fill our lives with optimism, we see optimism as a power.  Gratitude creates the source, and it is sustainable.