Some thoughts..."Heart of Gratitude"

Here it is another weekend...drab and dreary here, with darkening clouds and a few rain splatters from time to time. Kind of a day that makes one think, a little too much perhaps about things, the future and life in general and where are we headed...not only individually but collectively.
Then, in a moment of too-deep thinking, I happened upon the following story. It was not written by me, and from my understanding the author is unknown. If anyone does know who wrote it, I would definitely like to know who should be given the credit...they are truly deserving of it.

Heart of Gratitude

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words. Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way." I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it." Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively. When life gives you 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear. The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling. And even more beautiful is knowing that you are the reason behind it.

   -- Author Unknown

After reading these words, guess you could say I was "brought up short" in my thoughts. Because of circumstances in my life over the past number of months and yes, I can honestly say years, I will be the first to admit that perhaps I have had a bit of a negative attitude of recent.
However, after reading these above words, I realize that no matter how difficult things in life might seem at any particular time, it is the way we chose to look at it, to handle it, to accept and deal with it, - be it in a more positive than negative way- has a great effect upon ourselves. Negative thoughts bring about more negative thoughts and actions, positive thoughts, well, they give you a whole different and better perspective on the matter at hand.
As the saying is, "Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone."
Smile, Friends, smile....you will be surprised at how good you feel, how better you make life for those around you...and how really small the problems that you felt to be weighing you down in your life, really are.

Until next time...........smile and let the world wonder "what have you been up to"......