Attention Like the Sun

A new year is fast approaching. Lives will be reflected upon, mistakes and shortcomings will be realized, resolutions will be made. I’m not immune to that. I’ll be doing it, too. I do it every year. In fact, I do it multiple times a year. LOL Yeah, I think too much. 

Anyway, I started thinking about the things I’d like to do differently next year, both internally and externally. I won’t bore you with my career goals or my health and fitness goals (those are probably just like a bajillion other peoples’, LOL). I just want to tell you about one of my personal “Michelle” goals. One of my top priorities for 2017 is to do something GOOD, at least one thing for one person, every single day. It could be anything–helping someone at the store, listening to a stranger chat about his woes, gifting a book, sending a card to someone who needs a lift, praying for someone I don’t know–but I want to help someone in some way every single day of forever. That’s the kind of life I want to live. It’s the kind of person I want to be. That train of thought got me thinking (there is that pesky thinking thing again) about how I want to make people FEEL. 

When I look back over the last year, I remember tons of good. I’m blessed that I CAN remember good. But, unfortunately, there is also quite a bit of not-so-good. I remember seeing so much ugliness out in the world, especially on social media (and we all know how I feel about social media to begin with). That started me thinking about what it feels like to have someone’s attention turned toward you. It can be good or bad. I don’t believe it can be neutral. People will either feel better for having interacted with you, or they’ll feel worse. We all bring SOMETHING to everyone we meet, every day. Good or bad. It has to be one or the other, definitively. This year, I’ve seen many instances where I’d be willing to bet that certain kinds of attention probably felt like having hell fire raining down on someone’s head. I don’t like drama, so I usually have no idea what’s going on, but I see the fallout. I see the hell fire. That brought to mind how I want people to feel when MY attention is turned toward them. 

GOOD. 

HAPPY.

BETTER.

That’s how I want people to feel when they interact with me.

I want to be the type of person whose attention feels like sunshine–warm and happy and positive. When I chat with someone online or reach out to someone via text or email or a quick phone call, I want them to feel GOOD about hearing from me. I want to leave their life a better place, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Life brings enough turmoil and disappointment and hardship without me adding to it. I want to be a bright spot.

This is sort of like my mission statement. I hope the life I’ve lived thus far hasn’t been TOO far from this, but either way, this is my goal now. I hope to see you out there in 2017, and I hope that you’ll be able to truthfully say to yourself that I’m doing what I set out to do, and that you are left with a smile or some happy, positive thought after running into me:)

I hope y’all had a wonderful Christmas and that 2017 will be your best year yet!