Bitter or better? You decide...
I will begin this column by making a confession. I stole something. I’m not proud of what I’ve done. The person I stole from is a good Christian man. He’s a licensed and ordained minister, teacher, writer, singer and, occasionally, a philosopher. He’s also a weekly contributor to this newspaper. Yep, I stole the idea for this column from Billy Holland. See his column? It’s right over there, next to this one, feeling all safe and secure like no one here is going to steal from it. Gulp.
See, I like to read his column as I am formatting it for the paper, and today that phrase, “bitter or better,” just really inspired me.
Holland said, basically, that when life hands you lemons you can choose to make lemonade or you can choose to sit in a corner and suck a lemon. It’s not about what happens, it’s about how you choose to respond to what happens. I love this. It’s so simple, really, that even I can understand it.
Everybody goes through some kind of something in life, I’m no different. But I notice that when I choose to respond with optimism and laughter instead of pessimism and growls, life just looks brighter. Less growly as well. Life can’t be lemonade all of the time, but I’ll be darned if I’m gonna suck lemons in a corner when I can make the decision not to. In fact, I now choose to believe that I was inspired by Holland’s words, so inspired I had to spread the message. I didn’t steal; I adopted. That wasn’t theft; it was enlightenment. Thanks, Billy Holland. All that stuff I said earlier about stealing from a good Christian man? I was just kidding, never happened.
Patti is Editor of the Greene County Daily World. She loves to laugh and also loves kitties and wishes they could laugh, too. She’s kind of weird (you may have noticed,) but has a heart of gold. She wonders if anybody actually reads the stuff down here or if they are tired of reading her baloney much earlier than this. Hmm. Maybe she doesn’t actually want to know...If you would like to share a story, give away some cookies (Hi, Barb!) or just make a friend, she can be reached at pattigcdw@gmail.com.
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