Change That Tune

I am amazed at the angels out there who are disguised as grocery store baggers, gas station attendants, and even strangers who may just quickly touch your life in a meaningful way.
We all have people whom we admire and want to emulate. In fact, when I was in my 30's and I thought that I might say or do something icky (technical term for really, really stupid), I would think of Judy Guth, a woman I barely knew from the bowling league I was in (until they suggested I take up shuffleboard). Judy, an elementary school teacher, always seemed to be genuinely sweet, happy and smart enough to stay clear of any silly conflicts or gossip. She was and is ~ a classy person. We were never really friends ~ just passing acquaintances (remember I told you she is a classy person) but I still admired her from a distance. Maybe it was a good thing that we never became best buddies because sometimes the people you hold in high esteem become human, complete with faults and frailties when you get to know them well. Now, I can still stop myself in a troubling situation and say, “I wonder how Judy Guth would respond to this.” She may never know how many times she, by proxy, has kept me out of trouble or allowed me to remember to “mind my manners”.

Now there are also times when I can be in a dark mood, overwhelmed by my own life’s challenges, and a total stranger will appear and lighten my load with a gift of kindness. A waitress might give me a compliment on my sweater…or the water meter guy might tell me the landscaping looks nice. It takes me a second to hear what they are saying as I am in the middle of ME…and then I tune them in, like sharpening a fuzzy station on the radio. I realize that half the time, I am listening to the wrong channel. I keep my frequency to the same old station, playing the same old sad songs. But then a nice person turns the “channel” for me to a new station that has something positive, upbeat and different from the static I had been listening to earlier.

If I keep learning, I can start changing the channel for others, too, by performing some random acts of kindness and getting my head out of the wrong programming.

WPEG here, signing off. Good day and good health.