Today I was looking through photos on my phone.

I have been down lately. Not feeling motivated, feeling a little lost, and like I don’t have purpose.

While I was looking through old photos I came across one of my room in my parent’s house. I had a mirror that had the quote “do everything without grumbling or disputing.”

Let’s pause and do a little vocab lesson:

Grumbling: a mutter of discontent.

Disputing:  to argue irritably or with irritating persistence.

Neither of these sounds very fun to be around.

Back in my middle school, and high school years, I was a complainer. I could find the negative in EVERYTHING, but guess what? That’s because I was looking for it.

Without realizing.

This quote on my mirror was a wake-up call for me back then, as it is now as I’m writing this. I have fallen back into seeing the bad, complaining, wishing for more, and failing to see all of the blessings in my life. My heart hurts because of this.

We take life for granted. Over and over again when we tell ourselves we won’t take things for granted and a few short months later and there we are. Doing it once again.

I was once told that our mindset is like two wolves, one is the positive wolf that is grateful and looks for the good in circumstances and the other is the debbie downer who only sees the bad and complains. The wolf that gets fed the most, grows bigger.

Are you like me feeding the negative wolf without realizing it and then wondering why you find yourself feeling down and unhappy?

How could you be happy if all you are doing is finding things to be unhappy about? The good things are there I promise you, we just aren’t looking for them. We are starving the positive wolf.

So where do we go from here?

We start thinking about what we are thinking about. Sounds confusing, I know. But if we are being negative without realizing we need to become aware and pay attention. We need to realize. We need to catch ourselves in the act and redirect the food.

Here are some examples:

“I wish I had more money.” —> “I am thankful for the money I DO have.”

“I don’t want to go to work today” —-> “I GET to go to work today, and I am thankful I have a job.”

“I wish I was further in life, and that I had more.” —> “I am exactly where I am supposed to be and I am thankful for what I have and what I will accomplish in the future.”

“I don’t have a purpose, I am just going through the motions.” —> “God has a plan for my life and dreams that are even bigger than my own.”

” I am too far gone. I can never fix my mistakes.” —> “Nothing is too big for God to forgive or use. He works all things together for the good of those who love him. He loves me even in my mess.”

We sometimes get caught up in our mess that we forget there are things to be grateful for. We are so busy looking at other people’s lives and what we wish we had or looked like that we don’t utilize what we do have. Which is a shame.

Stay in your lane. Run YOUR race. You will lose the race every time if you are trying to run someone else’s.

You are here on purpose for a purpose.

There is good, you just have to look for it.

You get to decide which wolf you feed today.

If you have been feeding the negative wolf remember it is bigger and stronger and will take a little while to starve. Be kind and patient with yourself. Do your best.

From someone who let their negative wolf get too big,

From someone who forgets how good they have it,

From someone who is doing their best to be better,

From someone like you,

Bela.