Looking Up Is Easier Than Being Downhearted

I was picking beans the other day and discovered yet again, that my back does not like bending over for any length of time. I can stand it for maybe two bean bushes and then I have to straighten up again and stretch out my spine. It suddenly struck me, that I can look up at the sky for the longest time without any pain in my back or neck, but just a few seconds looking down will cramp up my lower back so bad it takes a while to straighten up again.

How true that is not only in our physical lives, but in our spiritual ones as well. The soul has an easier time of it looking up and being light hearted, than it does when everything is going wrong and gloom has settled in. How our spiritual selves crave that nice stretch sky-ward, where everything is light, and love and peace. When we get into spiritual doldrums, we not only feel bad emotionally but it shows in every part of our lives. They say that laughter is the best medicine, and that is true for the whole person, the soul as well as the body.

Laughter and joy go hand in hand, and the truest joy comes from inner peace. Inner peace comes from believing in something with all your heart and soul. For many of us that something would be God, and for others perhaps it is involvement in something they love, or in family life, or work ethic. The happiest people in the world are the ones who try to see the lighter side of everything. They don’t let anything get them down. Remember, it’s easier to look up than it is to look down.

If we do nothing but spread hostility around, then hostility is our legacy. It is how we will be remembered someday when the ballgame’s over and the eulogy is given. If we do our best to show love to a hostile world, then that will be our legacy. It’s easy to fall into the pit of anger and hatred when something provokes us but then it’s hard to climb back out of that pit because the dirt we fling just keeps falling back down on top of us.

We all do it. We fling that dirt in retaliation or pain, but then it just makes things worse and we start regretting our actions. It’s difficult to live with regret, that’s something we all know about. It’s so much easier to just swallow the pride and be nice even if it takes a few bites to get it down. A happy face on the world is easier to maintain than we usually think.

Of course, faking joy and happiness usually leads to sorrow for the individual. It can only last just so long before our true emotions begin to shine through. That is when we need an uplift in our lives, something that will cheer us up and instill that joy that we all crave. A love relationship perhaps, an education, a faith, a vacation. Something new that will bring something interesting to our lives when things start to get a bit dull.

Looking up when things get down is not always easy, I admit, but it can be worth the effort. You can say, “I’m a victim”, or you can say, “I have overcome”. People get so much more inspiration out of an overcomer than they do out of a victim. Usually there is always someone worse off than you are, no matter how bad it hurts at the time. If we try to think positively in everything we do, though it sounds as though it would take great effort, we come to realize in a short time that the effort is not so great after all, and before we know it, we are looking up rather than being down.