Our day to day lives are governed by routine. Whether it is our professional, academic or personal lives we can sometimes find ourselves doing the same thing day in and day out, usually without thinking about it. Simply going through the motions like this can often mean we fail to embrace the challenges life has a habit of throwing our way. Of course there are other factors contributing to why some people face the dark of night before the sun even thinks about setting.
As you no doubt are aware much as the information we have on the world is derived from what we see, hear and read about in the media. While a small number of these are stories of hope and encouragement, unfortunately the majority are not.
Personally I’ve always made a point of avoiding the news and current affairs programs of an evening simply because I prefer to end my day on a positive note rather than a negative one. It is the morning where I catch up on the news of the previous day, hoping against hope that the day ahead will be an improvement over the one before.
I’m aware of how cynical that must sound but believe me when there is nothing but death and destruction facing you on a daily basis then you either ignore the media completely or run the risk of depressing yourself to the point where smiling seems an unachievable goal. What people have a tendency to overlook though is from the ashes of disaster something wonderful can often emerge.
One of my wife’s favourite movies is the Richard Curtis 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually. My wife and I have completely different tastes in movies and this is one of the few films we can actually enjoy together. It’s a wonderful movie and absolutely perfect for the Christmas season, the movie’s most powerful moment occurs in the first thirty seconds of the film, during Hugh Grants opening narration. In the film Hugh plays the role of David, the UK’s newly elected Prime Minister; someone who you actually wish held that post in the real world as his character is a lot more likeable than some of the people who have had the top job in the past. The film opens with a montage of people being greeted by their loved ones at Heathrow airport and the narration that plays over these scenes states how the messages sent by people affected by the events of 9/11 were messages of love not hate, and it cleverly leads into the film’s title by adding if you take the time to look for it then you will see that love is actually all around you.
In a lot of ways the opening monologue of Love Actually addresses the question posed by the title of this piece. When I was in Primary school one of my teachers had a saying which I didn’t really appreciate at the time which was ‘Wherever you are in the world, somewhere the sun is shining’. While this is definitely the case geographically the same is true of our day to day lives.
If there is something troubling you in some way, the effect it can have is akin to a solar eclipse. The problem is that when this early night is forced upon you it’s easy to forget that the light is still there, but it is now hidden behind a cloud of circumstance.
What we have to do is to find a way to penetrate the cloud and allow the light to stream back into our lives. The way we choose to achieve this varies from person to person, and what works for one won't work for another but whatever the method the principle remains the same. It usually involves pinpointing the many positive aspects of our lives, and generally you will find the positives will outweigh the negatives. However it’s not always this simple to claw your way out of the darkness and it is for this reason organizations like Beyond Blue exist provide a little bit of assistance finding that elusive light.
What we have to remind ourselves is that the light switch is always within reach, only sometimes we require assistance in locating it.
No comments:
Post a Comment