The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

This is one of my favorite pictures from my personal collection because I find such joy in the beauty of this without the frustration that I associate with dandelions in my yard. When they are growing in my yard, they only serve to remind me how much it's going to cost in weed killer and time to remove them or the frustration that my neighbor upwind of us won't kill their weeds.

Children have the ability to see these differently though. They have no comprehension of what a weed is. To them, they are a beautiful and lovely tiny kid-sized yellow flower they pick and give to mom and dad or their friends. Then complete delight sets in when it turns to that magical puff to wish upon with eyes closed and head tilted upward as you inhale with everything in you before you release that slow deliberate exhale to send it scattering up into the wind. Oh, what a joy that was...when I was little.

Life is kind of like this at times. We may be surrounded by bad things or negative people, struggles, and burdens. I dare say there is a beauty within each if we promise to look for it along the way and not focus only on the negative aspects. Perhaps a broken arm becomes an early discovery of something worse. It was terrible to break the arm but had that not happened the other illness would have become fatal due to lack of treatment. Instead, that broken arm saved a life. The good showed up through the bad and we should try to find that value. It may be more difficult when it involves toxic people, but I still think we can find at least one good thing in each person.

If we try really hard, maybe we can even find the joy from struggles and pretend it is the beauty of the dandelion puff...breathe in, breathe out slowly, and giggle!