When mining the gold in our days is a simple step away...(friends, stories & positive stuff)

Photo credit: Tina A. Mathur & Sandeep Banerjee

Life’s what we make of it. And so is our internet time. Whether we fritter away those moments online (or offline), posting negative comments, angry words or wisps of judgment, or leave a bread crumb trail of positivity -  what we do with our time, our life, our days, is often up to us.

Just the other day, Priyanka - a friend, fellow writer and Air Force wife, passed on a gratitude challenge to me. We had to list out and post all those things we are grateful for; the abundance and the love, our family and our friends, the food on our table and the clothes on our back. The small and the big, the old and the new, the tangible and the intangible. Gratitude in all its forms, in all its glory, in all its simplicity.

I wrote out my words, feeling the tingle of positivity and the rush of energy, remembering all over again what I am grateful for in my life. It took me a few minutes to dip into this challenge. Bur it left me with an afterglow of gratitude for the rest of the evening. For me, the #Iamgrateful challenge was another bread crumb, waiting to be scattered into the vast terrain of the online world.

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Another pebble of positivity that I stumbled across last week was from Claudia, my college buddy from law school. We haven’t met since we graduated from law school (that was over 10 years ago!), with just the spider web thread of a social media network keeping us connected. So I was pleasantly surprised, when she started the “I Like” campaign on her page. Claudia wrote out the good things she remembered about each one of us who left our thumbprints on this challenge. Snippets from college life, time spent hanging out, happy moments from a phase that’s passed us by. Small things that are so easy to miss in the hullaballoo and humdrum of adult life. Things that get buried beneath the busyness and the debris of time.

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Yet another friend & fellow military wife - Tina, captures the happiness and laughter with her camera and shares them online, letting the smiles spill over into another busy week. Letting us remember what we may just forget as we whirl about in our week. She whips out her camera ever so often at weekend squadron parties, freezing the bonhomie within the photographs, preserving them for posterity. Like mementoes to be cherished over the years, as reminders of all the good that comes our way within the span of the daily, like symbols of joy amidst the chaos and routine of the everyday.

It really is that simple to spread the goodness and share the positivity, with just a few actions and a generous dollop of mindfulness. Whether we choose to work for a charity, raise funds for a cause,help Mother Nature; whether we choose to say a kind word, click some happiness, spread that often-missing feeling of gratitude,or paint our homes with joy - let's do something...anything, to create more positive ripples. To stir in some goodness in this teacup called life.

So, today, as we step into a brand new month and another week, let’s follow the bread crumb trail of positivity. Let’s lay out a few trails of our own, online & offline, so we can tread through our days with more joy.

Have an interesting (in a good way) week and month.

Good Morning Monday & a Happy New Month + Week!