Am I Looking for What’s Right?

Am I Looking for What’s Right or Am I Looking for What’s Wrong?

When we are looking for what’s right, we invite life to shower us with all its many gifts.  Looking for what’s right opens our hearts and allows us to live in a state of gratitude for what we have.  It lets us appreciate the little things that bless us every day.  It causes us to stop taking for granted the many gifts in our lives.  Just think of all the things we have to be grateful for!  The fact that you are reading this article means that you have the ability to read, as well as the resources to access the Internet.  Your heart is pumping, your lungs are breathing, and you have the priceless ability to see, feel, taste, and smell.  These are extraordinary gifts!  The state of gratitude lives within each of us, and when we stop and ask this question, we gain immediate access to the level of consciousness where love and gratitude reside.  When we look for what’s right, we inspire our children, our friends, our co-workers, and our communities.

It’s easy to look for what’s wrong.  For most of us, this is our default way of viewing the world.  We are experts at describing in great detail what isn’t right about our jobs, our mothers, our relationships, our teachers, our children, our bodies, our government, and our bank accounts.  When we look for what’s wrong, we choose to view our lives through the narrowest possible lens, zooming in on the places where our expectations haven’t been met, where others have failed to meet our needs, where the world doesn’t look the way we have decided it should.  When we’re looking for what’s wrong, our eyes focus on the negative qualities of others, spotting their weaknesses and their incompetencies.

In addition to immediately shifting our perspective and thus our mood, what this question does is show us that maybe–just maybe–what’s wrong is not “over there” with others.  Maybe the problem lives not outside us but rather in our own lenses, the ones through which we choose to view the world.  We can easily argue against this point and say that our spouses are wrong, that our bosses are wrong, and that the waitress who brought the wrong kind of salad dressing is wrong, too.  But what we can be assured of is that if we look for what’s wrong in any given situation, we will find it.  And then our experience will be one of disappointment and discontent.

The moment we find something wrong, we automatically point our fingers in blame at the other person or the situation.  It’s so easy to find fault.  Finding fault with others is the lazy person’s out.  I’ve done it a million times myself.  I’ve pointed my finger at others instead of taking responsibility for the reality I see.  I have been guilty of blaming my boss, my boyfriend, my coach, and even my mother for my discontent.  Making others wrong becomes an excuse we use to justify our moods and bad behavior.  By focusing on what’s wrong, we avoid taking responsibility. . . .

We must all ask ourselves what would happen if we changed the lens through which we view the world.  How would our lives alter if we saw out co-workers as divine beings who are here to impart essential wisdom to us?  What would happen if we listened to our neighbors as though they were the wisest people in the world?  Would they show up any differently than they do right now?  What would be possible if we approached our partners as though their soul purpose was to bring us ecstasy and joy?  What would we hear?  What would we see?  What would be possible?  Looking for what’s right is a life-enhancing choice–a choice that promises peace, contentment, and fulfillment.

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