The power of positive pants

Those people who always seem to be happy, to find joy in the journey, to look for the good... I want desperately to be one of those people.  Janna was so much that person.  She often referred to "putting on her positive pants" when she knew she had a hard thing ahead of her or she could feel herself starting to creep toward self pity.

I enjoy being happy, I love the feeling I get when I can look past an obstacle and see the good amidst the junk.  I'm not so great at putting on my positive pants when I'm tired, cranky, and overwhelmed.  I am really good at snapping at my children, and being short with my husband.  Today I shared those qualities, with my 15 year old son.  I love having a child that can problem solve, is mastering the art of sarcasm, and that I laugh with about stuff that would be lost on a younger kid.  But with those things, comes a kid who can call you on your crap, and knows when you're just having a bad day and taking it out on them. Jayce calls me on my crap, and my crap doesn't like it.  Today we spent a half an hour sitting in the car after we got home from church discussing the blessing of being positive.  He likes everything to be "fair." Which of course is relative when you're parenting 3 kids of different ages, differing personalities, and varying strengths and weaknesses.  He wants to talk though every situation where he gets treated differently than another sibling, so that he can be heard while he describes why his treatment is unfair.  Sorry dude, ain't nobody got time for that.  We all could spend our lives away trying to talk through why everything in everyone's lives are unfair.  It's exhausting just thinking about it!

Instead I challenged him for 24 hours to focus on nothing but the positive.  (He referenced a conference talk for last general conference, I was very impressed)  It took a few minutes of practicing.  How is that possible, he asked.  For example, I said, you walk outside and step in a pile of dog poop.  What's the positive?  He couldn't do it.  Thank goodness you had shoes on, and it didn't squish between your toes!  Thank heavens the dog pooped on the ground and not in your bed, and dog poop in the grass means we have our Flapjack, whom we love so much.  He started to catch on, but a thread of frustration was still intertwined with this new thought process.  His desire for fairness, for justice, and balance in treatment is strong.  I reminded him of Corrie and her reluctance to accept Betsy's gratitude for the fleas.  If these women, in the worst possible situation possibly ever, found things to grateful for, certainly we, as blessed as we are, can do the same.  (Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place)

It's been 6 hours.  He has worked hard.  He grins sideways at me when he finds something especially difficult to find gratitude in, like at least Lainy gets to enjoy those Oreos, instead of them going to waste when he finds frustration at being gluten free.  

Maybe that's the answer.  If you desire and choose to be happy, and find joy, you will.  Eventually, if we try hard enough we will look around at the rain and realize that without trying we found beauty and gratitude for it.