Turn down these voices, inside my head… recognize the lyrics? Know the song?  Do you find your own words echoing in your head? Maybe you dwell on what others said? Did you ingrain the life lesson from last week into your psyche?  The best way to guarantee the future is to create it… and that creation comes in our thoughts and our words.  I once read that a said negative statement is 10X stronger than a positive one. Are you 10X more positive than you are negative?

Were you a victim of circumstance last week or did you try to create your own circumstances? How well did you do in trying to keep a positive focus and not fall into complaining? I know I have a habit if focusing more on the negative than the positive. I try to stay aware of that and remember to celebrate the positive and not default to assuming the negative. I also know that I also keep a very optimistic perspective of what the future holds, and in general, don’t dwell on the negative.

This Week’s Talk

Dicken’s sure fits a lot into this dinner scene. Each element is played out in a true, concise, and insightful portrayal.  We watched the family slowly come together, we watched the meal get prepared, served, and enjoyed. Scrooge had to wrestle with the insight that, short of significant intervention, Tiny Tim will not survive another year. Now, as the meal comes to a close, the Cratchit family is in the process of saluting Scrooge and giving thanks for all they are blessed with while honoring the day.  The family is happy, enjoying the sparse punch offering that was prepared for the meal, and preparing to salute the day and Mr. Scrooge.

Last week we talked about how Scrooges words come back to haunt him once again as the ghost uses his lack of compassion and his contempt for the “surplus” population to contrast against his sudden compassion for Tiny Tim’s possible demise. I am sure Dicken’s didn’t mean it this way, but for me, as noted in the previous paragraph, this is one of the rules of life that we need to grasp:  Words matter. How we use words is clearly directly related to how we treat and value others. Not just for the way we affect others I think it is critical to grasp how our words have the power to affect us.    We see that he assigns no value what so ever to anything, or anyone, beyond the monetary value or potential gain. He treats people poorly, he has no relationship with his relatives, Scrooge throws around the expression of surplus population. Could there be a correlation, and even possible causality, between Scrooges Bah, Humbug words, the bitterness in his interpersonal dealings, and his miserable personality?  We are at the point where the Spirit of Christmas Present gives Scrooge his harshest reality check yet.  The Spirt tells Scrooge…”It may be, that in the sight of heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child.”  Imagine being on the receiving end of that. You go from thinking of yourself as this powerful person with dominion over all those poorer and less fortunate than you to being told that you may be closer to the bottom of the food chain than the top.

This Week’s Assignment

Have you ever read stories about people that were very successful, and then lost everything?  Many, many times these stories also include the follow on that the person rises from the ashes and succeeds again.  Scrooge falls from his high perch as the almighty man in the circles he travels in. Since you know how this story turns out, I don’t need to give you a spoiler alert that in the end Scrooge ends up in a much better place.  Scrooge falls from his high and mighty position to being more worthless than millions.  I would imagine to Scrooge his whole identity is built around his sense of wealth. Yes, money provides security but it shouldn’t be your identity. This week, I want you to start to think about how this situation may relate to you, to how you go through the day, how you interact with others, who you interact with, how you deal with stranger’s vs how you deal with people close to you? You need to look critically. Scrooge is suddenly put in his place by his own words. How true are you, really, to what you tell yourself is important vs how you act.  Are you consistent and true to your values or are you always “justifying” what you do, how you act, and what you say? Are you one of the people that will tell me “ I just say the truth?”or “ I just tell it the way it is”.

See you next week…