“Whatever you focus on increases.”
There are a million versions of this idea out there; the above is sort of mine but mostly Laura Doyle’s. The link is to the post I received today, but she’s said this many times, in many contexts.
There’s some real truth (as opposed to unreal truth?) in this saying, but I want to focus first on how it can be false, since we humans always take thing too far. It’s false if taken in the sense of magical thinking, the idea that your thoughts can actually change external reality–“If I think this hard enough it will come true.”
To the left is a shot of the thank-you cards that I received on Tuesday evening at the annual dinner/meeting of the Cherry Creek Chorale. I’d been putting away the leftovers and so sat in the back as the meeting started. There seemed to be a lot of cards being passed around, but I didn’t think much of it since we have one member in the hospital and a couple others who are leaving. To be honest I didn’t think about it all that much.
I wrote yesterday about Perri Klass’s books, one of which was written with her mother, and how I totally understood her struggles to get her mother to accept any kind of gift or help. There’s a long section in 
It’s a ritual for me as the weather warms up to wander around the yard peering hopefully at my perennials, looking for the first buds. Did they make it through the winter? I still have one plant I’m monitoring, telling myself that I can see some buds forming, but it’s probably self-delusion.
Do you see life as good and worthwhile in itself, or only when you’re fully occupied and happy? I was reminded recently of a conversation embodying that question between two of my favorite fictional characters.