Where's YOUR spotlight??

Recently I was doing school...a favorite activity of mine! ;) To relax and recharge my brain every once in a while I'd look up out my window. (See above picture.) Just focusing on the trees waving and wind gently blowing revived me and gave me more power to accomplish my schoolwork.

As I was looking out the window, I noticed something. I could focus my eyes on the beautiful tree outside, a positive thing. Or I could focus on the screen between me and the outside, a negative thing. (See below picture.) What should I focus on? I decided to focus my "spotlight" on the positive, which in this case was the tree.

I thought this thought quite profound. It reminded me of an important life lesson, that we choose what to focus on. Sure, there may be plenty of evil, sad, and worry-causing things in our world. But should we focus on these types of things all the time?
Or should we focus on the pure, happy and cheerful things of life?

While we must focus on the sad things at times, they certainly don't make us happy. Do we really want to be happy? Then we need to focus, at least most of the time, on the positive.

For example, say my sister asks to play with me. I may not want to play with her. Regardless of if I play with her or not, I have two thoughts that could run through my brain: "My sister is purposely trying to annoy me", or, "Wow! That's really nice, she wants to play with me!"

Joyful people don't necessarily have more things to be joyful about, they have just chosen to shine the spotlight, if you will, on the positive events and things in their lives.

Say someone comes up to you and says, "Hi! How are you doing?" You reply, "Fine, thanks". Each party is not going to get much out of this way of talking, really, it's just a courtesy we don't think about much.

Let's repeat this conversation, just a tad different: "Hi! How are you doing?" You enthusiastically reply, "I'm awesome! Thanks for asking!" There's a two-way benefit with talking this way: Your cheerfulness has gone up a notch, and so has the other person's.

Even if you don't feel awesome, saying you feel awesome will start telling your brain, "Hey there! I feel better than fine. I feel AWESOME!" And everyone wants to be happier. Even if you don't feel like it, try to sound happier than you are...and before you know it you will be that happy! The only "cheerfulness" limitations that you have are the ones that you put on. I know for me personally I've found this works--I've been trying to apply this principle to my life for the past couple months and it's really neat to see how it works.

Proverbs 15:13, NIV:

"A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit."

Another tip on keeping happy is to consciously monitor our thoughts. Do we use a lot of negative thoughts, or positive ones? A great way to monitor thoughts is to list off 5 great things about your life, your family, etc. every time you think a negative thoughts. And first thing in the morning or last thing at night, list off 5 things that went great that day.

For example, for me I could list these:

1) My work went great today!

2) I learned the meaning of some new words today.

3) I have a great family!

4) I got to read.

5) I got to journal.

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Of course, everyone's list will be different.

So I know this devotional has been a bit long and lengthy, but I did want to point out that we do control our thoughts. How happy we are depends on where we focus our spotlight. I encourage each and every one of you to focus on the good, not the bad. That way we are a lot more happy!

Proverbs 17:22, NIV:

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."

As for me, my spotlight is on the tree, not the screen!