Sunday morning arrived,and Gideon was but a memory as I busied myself with the normal chores of daily living. Later I went for a walk and got to thinking about the past few years, about Gideon's comments on how we're always forgetting the good things and remembering the bad ones. It seemed it was just the opposite of what psychologists have been saying. I was taught that we tend to forget our unpleasant experiences and remember the good ones. Yet, how many of us always focus on what might have been, what got away, or our failures rather than our achievements?



I had learned so much from Gideon and had put so little of that to use. I, too, was guilty of not counting my blessings. According to him, whatever we focus on becomes our reality. Perhaps by looking too closely at the difficulties of the past, I prevented myself from seeing what could be. I resolved then and there to do my best to change the way I looked at things.

All of a sudden the realization came to me in a brilliant flash of insight. I was safe. The children were fine. We were all healthy, and there had been just enough money in the past to keep us going. Malika and Jonathan were doing extremely well in school. I had totally changed career directions and was now writing articles for magazines, lecturing, and consulting. I even had a book published and was writing others. No one had repossessed my car, the mortgage was up to date,my new friends were extremely supportive, and even relatives seemed not to be as bothersome as before. Actually, things were going quite well, with the promise of becoming even better.

Why, then, did I worry so much about everything? A friend had once commented to me that it appeared I had forgotten what it was like to be happy. And now,as I pondered all these thoughts, it became clear to me that worrying was a habit and, by the same reasoning, being happy was also a habit. It was merely a matter of choice. Experiences in life do not create our emotions. Rather, our emotions have a great deal to do with creating our experiences.

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