Clean the slate in 2010

Clean the slate in 2010
Believe it or not, to some people the Christmas holidays are a period of sadness and not happiness. What should be a time to rejoice and give thanks for all the good that happens in your life, some people see it as a time to blame themselves for all the bad that has happened in their lives and some even go as far as committing suicide.
In fact, this period from the 23rd to the 27th of December is when most suicides happen in our society.
What people must understand is that either you are cause or you are the effect. Either you are a creature of circumstances or you are the creator of your own circumstances. You must accept that whatever results you have gotten in your life, either good or bad, were created by your thoughts and your actions.
Yes, I know that there are things that happen to human beings that are beyond their control. You might have lost your job in the recession, you might have been the victim of a hold up by a mugger, and you may have lost your house in a hurricane or an earthquake. Although you don’t control the event, you do control how you react to the event.
You may decide to cry 24 hours a day and that won’t solve anything. Or you may decide to go out into the world and do something, invent something, take a new idea and apply it.
You can actually look at anything as a cup half empty, or a cup half full. Everything in life can be looked at 180 degrees from the way other people look at it. If you would simply make the decision to turn anything in your life around and look at it the best possible way, your life would also turn around and you would be much happier.
The other point I want to stress in this article is the fact that for you to go on in your life and make something out of it, you must forgive yourself of anything you have done in the past.
I once read a story by my colleague Mark Hansen about a man who was in his death bed.
It was a cold winter night that time of the year and there had been an early frost. There was black ice on the highways, the tree branches were broken and it was late at night.
The Catholic priest, Father O’Malley gets a call at 1.30 in the morning. He’s just finished working on his sermon for the following day and the call sort of shakes him up. The caller says: “Father, we are sorry, but we have Tom here who’s got a failing liver and he is just about ready to die. He needs for you to come and do the last rites”.
So, Father O’Malley gets dressed and goes out in the bitter cold night. The short half hour drive takes over two and a half hours because of such negative weather conditions.
He gets to the hospital and the wind almost blows the car door off and it shivers his whole body. He shuffles across the black ice because it rained and the rain had turned to ice. He goes into the hospital and the nurse grabs him and says “Father O’Malley, hurry, the guy’s only got a few minutes left. Father O’Malley gets in the room and says “Tom, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I would drop by”.
Tom reacted quite negatively at the comment. “Cut the bull, you weren’t in the neighborhood. I called for the last rites, now give them and get out”.
Father O’Malley told him that if he wanted to confess anything or admit anything or say anything, now was the time to do it.
The man then told Father O’Malley that what he had done was so awful, ugly and terrible that God couldn’t forgive him nor could he.
So, Father O’Malley and the guy talk for an hour or so and he can see in the monitor that his vital signs are deteriorating. He tells him that he can see that he is getting weaker and that he has only a few minutes to live. “If you are ever going to say anything, now is the time” Father O’Malley told the patient.
“Well, nobody can do anything to me now, so I might as well tell you” he said. “It happened 24 years, two months and two hours ago. That is how heavy it is to my heart. My whole life I have been a railroad switchman and I have been an alcoholic. This night was cold, muggy and I went out to switch the railroad track. I was drunk and I switched the wrong track. The train went right into a car and killed the mother, the father, and the two daughters”. Like I said, “you can’t forgive me and God can’t forgive me”.
Father O’Malley put his hand on Tom and said, “God and I forgive you. You see, that was my mother, he my father, and my two older sisters. And that accident is what made me decide to become a priest. We all forgive you”.
The hard part in life is forgiving you. Forgive your bad teachers, forgive your bad bosses, and forgive your bad friends, husbands or wives. You can probably do that but you can’t forgive yourself.
Take a piece of paper and write down 10 times “I forgive, I forgive, I forgive”, and then you forgive your mom and you forgive your dad and everyone in your life.
It is amazing what will happen to you if you do that. It will clear you up to start 2010 with a clean slate, ready to accomplish your real mission in life and help as many people as you possibly can.