By Renei Yarrow, Guest Contributor
Life has ups and downs. Like many, I’ve seen my share of downs. Not really tragedies, thank goodness. More like internal downs. Those can often feel tragic. Many years ago I learned an invaluable lesson during one of these episodes. At the time, there wasn’t much I knew to do to quiet my mind. I watched a lot of TV. I watched a lot of the Home Shopping Network.
I only really enjoyed watching them sell clothing and jewelry. I really got a kick out of the presenter’s dialog and inflection. It was almost mesmerizing. Not once did I see an article of clothing I thought was attractive upon first glance. They’d talk about the item for 10 – 20 minutes and sell thousands. It didn’t take long before I realized what was going on.
They’d take the UGLIEST item, pick out SOMEthing good about it, highlight it, feature it until suddenly, Hey! I want one of those!
I will say right now I’ve never purchased anything from the Home Shopping Network.
But if they can do that with those goofy clothes, why can’t I do that with unappealing situations? I realize that on HSN they are using marketing and selling tactics to make a buck. So what? It works. Why not use that tactic to “sell” to myself what might otherwise be unpleasant circumstances?
Of course if there is something I can change about a situation to make it better, I will do my best to make that happen. It is not my intention to become complacent. But too many times in our lives there are circumstances we cannot change and must live with.
The Serenity Prayer asks to accept the things we cannot change. I want to take that one step further learning not only to accept those things but also to love and embrace them by finding the good, highlighting it and featuring it.
