Dark Clouds Have Silver Linings.
That’s an old expression that my British born mother used to console my brother and I when as children, things did not go as planned. Excitedly anticipated outings cancelled because of activities on the farm requiring attention. Accidents, injuries, childhood illnesses forcing changes to plans. Caring for sick animals or wilting crops always taking precedence over keeping children entertained. Quite right too.
It has proved useful to develop my resilience, to overcome adversity, during some of the more difficult periods of my life.
Sometimes the silver lining cannot be seen at all behind the huge dark cloud of a major upset, losing a job, business failure, divorce, death of a loved one. It takes a bit of time for the cloud to start lightening, revealing its lining. Sometimes intermittently like the glimpse of a lace petticoat peeking out from under the hem of a long, dark, heavy Victorian era skirt as its wearer steps gingerly over a puddle on a muddy street – perhaps in an old Western movie. At other times in bold flashes, with the effrontery of a Can-Can dancer swirling her skirt to display her, far from Victorian, lacy undergarments.
Occasionally, that flash of silver is apparent as soon as the dark cloud forms.
In a previous post I wrote about the unexpected gifts that I received because of a neighbour’s accident. The neighbour was fitted with a walking cast for her broken leg this week, she is reasonably mobile and has resumed most of the chores a friend and I were doing for her.
The dark cloud of her accident and injury has parted, during the six weeks it hung around, it revealed a whole series of silver linings.
The accident caused my neighbour pain, inconvenience and the frustration of being unable to care for her horses and garden as she would have liked.
It cost me between an hour and an hour and a half a day for 41 days. Just time. I compensated by getting up an hour earlier every morning, reducing further my minimal TV viewing and cutting back temporarily on my reading time. My other activities and commitments were unaffected.
The gifts I received from that investment in time have been amazing. Just a few:
- Meeting a wonderful new friend.
- Getting to know my neighbour better.
- Meeting other new friends.
- Getting to know other neighbours.
- Hearing interesting stories about our area, Canada and North America.
- Learning other horse owners’ opinions and practices.
- Being introduced to other horse owners.
- Finding alternate sources of hay.
- Being given hay that was surplus to requirements.
Most rewarding of all, getting my new friend Nancy to contribute guest posts to this blog and to collaborate on a new blog aimed at horse owners. It is still a work in progress, here is the link, Horse Sense Tips
Most setbacks, disappointments and even serious hurdles hold gifts for us, we just need to look through the dark cloud and find that silver lining.
Do you focus on the cloud or search for the silver lining?
Wishing you success and an extraordinary life.
photo nebojsa mladjenovic via Compfight
Do I focus on the cloud or the silver lining? Hmmm A little of both. Some times it is easy to get from cloud to silver lining. Other times the issues/problem/setback just takes over my head and takes longer to get to silver lining. But I try and I have good friends/support to help me get there.