Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “your favorite word.” Decide on your favorite word and use it in your post any way you’d like. Enjoy!
It’s not easy to decide one ONE favorite word. For a moment, I thought my favorite word could be, “possible.” Then I thought of hope. The meaning behind the word, hope, is one of my favorite things. Hope does not have the certainty of faith, but it can lead to faith. If you don’t have faith, look for hope.
I have a bumper sticker that I never put on my bumper. It used to be on a mirror. Now, it’s on my kitchen counter propped by the window. Maybe I’ll stick it on something one day. It says,
Feed your hopes, not your fears.
That’s where the top meme above comes from. Fears can roll around in my head like a crazy dance I don’t want to go to, but end up going anyway. Even knowing how to stop them and rethink takes remembering to do it. Questioning your fears would be like, what evidence is there to support that thought of a cataclysmic meteor hitting the planet? Sure, there are plenty of sci fi movies about it, but what are the chances?
Fear: But I want to be prepared just in case!
Hopes: Okay, so prepare some, but don’t dwell on it, especially at 2 AM.
Let’s hope it never happens. Let’s hope for the best, prepare for the worst, but not make a hobby out of preparing for the worst.
Let’s focus on things we can control or change. Like the serenity prayer says, “Courage to change the things we can.” We can change our own thoughts and actions.
Ten years ago, I quieted my fears of falling back into a sick relationship and focused on myself. I began to hope that there was a partner out there for me that would be a good fit. Not someone who had fits, but who would be compatible. In December, David and I will have been married for 10 years. He doesn’t have fits. He is compatible as in open minded, spiritual, practical (which I need) and he loves dogs.
I hope my dog Marley doesn’t catch the snake I saw this morning. It was a black racer. David says we won’t have a rodent problem with that guy around, meaning the snake which is not poisonous. I’m glad I spotted the snake before Marley did. My daughter suggested I put some big rocks out there the snake can hide under. There is already an old rain gutter embedded in the vines as you can see in the photo. I’ve tried to remove that old rain gutter many times, but it was too hard. Now, I’m going to leave it.
I hope the old rain gutter will provide refuge for the non-poisonous snakes and skinks that Marley likes to hunt.
I hope there are no poisonous snakes in our yard. Changing that to be positively stated, I hope the snakes in our yard are all harmless to people, beneficial to people would be even more positive.
Stating our hopes positively is important. I wrote about this in my very short how to book: From Loneliness to Love. (See sidebar.)
Instead of saying, I want a partner who is not crazy. I would say, I hope for a partner who is reasonably sane, stable, and dependable. Nobody’s perfect, but compatibility is possible. First, we need to get compatible with ourselves. God has a plan for when we are ready.
I hope we humans learn to respect planet earth and help her heal. I hope we clean up our messes. I hope we can learn to live in peace and work things out safely. I interrupted the stream briefly, like a nanosecond, to change the negative words in my head to positives. Flipping that switch gets better with practice. Not perfect. Better.
I hope you all have a beautiful weekend full of hope!
For more hope, drop by on Tuesday for some good news!
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For more streams of favorite words, along with the SoCS rules,
visit our host, Linda Hill by clicking HERE.
Anything is Possible! 