“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank
I came across this quote again this week, and it struck such a chord with me, and reminded me of how we often delay or negate our own right to improve our lives and the lives of others.
How often do we say to ourselves and others, “Oh life will be great when X happens to me…it’ll all be ok then” as if happiness and a better life is something that happens to us rather than something we can start living right now. And it starts small, improving the world. It starts with our thoughts.
I changed my way of thinking and expectation some years back. I realised that waiting passively for good things or change to just happen is just wishing your life away. Instead I decided to be happier, right now in the moment despite whatever “lack” or loss I was experiencing. My world changed forever the moment I lost my brother so suddenly, but it didn’t mean the rest of my life had to be filled with loss. I stopped expecting negative events to occur just because they had in the past. I stopped believing in “luck! (especially bad luck), and I stopped complaining or focusing on the things I couldn’t change. Instead, I decided to improve my little corner of the world first of all. And the rest followed, improvement came to life because the Universe met me half way wherever and whenever I made effort toward it. And in turn, I felt able to help others improve their corner of the world… and so it continued. The ripple effect of tiny things we change for the better continues past that which we can acknowledge.
I found that complaining is a pointless waste of energy unless we aim to make effective and positive change through doing so. I’m a fan of a good vent – (often a big sweary one!) then without fail I immediately move forward to come up with some kind of solution or constructive alternative approach to solve whatever caused me to complain – or just let go of what I cannot change. If I waste my energy on dwelling on what just happened… it generates negativity and low morale, things just won’t improve. So I choose to be pro-active instead.
Accepting those events and changes outside my control was hardest of all… the realisation came via my guides that sometimes we write things into our life plan before we come here to this life just so that we experience what it is to walk a mile in those shoes, to hold ourselves with dignity, evolve spiritually and become strengthened of spirit for having gone through it. Often it is not the event that is the lesson, nor is it ever “punishment”…it is all about whether we rose to its challenge, and how we carried ourselves through it. And we often go on to help others going through hard times as a result.
By unlearning negative thought patterns and expectations, replacing them with positive thoughts and expectations wherever I could, I visualised changing my life for the better, really saw myself having achieved the changes I wanted to make, seeing the end result as already real. And it worked. I still have the occasional blip, I am human …but on the whole my life is a happy one, even though I still face the same challenges as everyone else.
Just like the positivity Anne Frank showed in the face of awful challenges that she and many millions in circumstances just like hers still face today… positive attitude is infectious… it inspires, it spreads, it grows. It is literally hope… it changes the world little by little.
No matter how tiny the change, if it is for the greater good, if it helps us to feel passion about what we believe is right, and compassion for our fellow human beings and creatures, if we improve how we truly feel about ourselves, inside and out… if we “Do Something About It” wherever we can… however big or small our “it” of the moment may be – then we improve the world bit by bit.
Anne Frank was so right in these words… we need not wait a single moment longer to bring positive and powerful change into the world, even if we just start with ourselves. Bigger things will change in time…