The Meaning Behind Circumstances

What does an old sock means to us? It might mean nothing. But imagine, if the sock was a gift from someone we loved, the one and only thing left to remind us of them, doesn’t that means a lot more to us now? What if someone in our family threw it away (it is just an old sock anyway)? Surely it might make us feel up sad. Why?

It was not the sock that mattered. It was the meaning that was represented by the sock. A sock is only a sock anyway, it has little meaning other than its main function. But the meaning we gave it has a positive or negative effect on us.

In our daily lives, we face so many circumstances. Positive circumstances can make us feel happy, satisfied, confident, or other positive feelings. Negative circumstances can make us unhappy, dissatisfied, unconfident, or other negative feelings. But actually, circumstances are not negative or positive, circumstances are neutral. It is our thinking, our mental state, our perspective, that makes a circumstance positive or negative.

Bob Proctor does some of the best teaching on this subject, using a universal law he refers to as the Law of Polarity.

"Everything in the universe has its opposite. There would be no inside to a room without an outside. You have a right and left side to your body, a front and a back. Every up has a down and every down has and up. The Law of Polarity not only states that everything has an opposite -- it is equal and opposite. If it was three feet from the floor up to the table, it would be three feet from the table down to the floor. If it is 150 miles from Manchester to London, by law it must be 150 miles from London to Manchester; it could not be any other way."

"If something you considered bad happens in your life, there has to be something good about it. If it was only a little bad, when you mentally work your way around to the other side, you will find it will only be a little good."

Having a flat tire on your way to your office seems to be a negative circumstance to you, but it’s a very positive circumstance for your local tire dealer. Looking even further it’s possible that while changing the tire the dealer discovers a much more serious problem that would have cost you a large sum of money if discovered later.

Every circumstance can be viewed two ways. It’s the way we view a circumstance that determines its impact on our thinking and mental state. And we know that it determines the quality of life that we live.

No matter how bad the circumstance appears to be, taking another look, from another perspective, reveals to us the good. Or, as Napoleon Hill author of the classic "Think and Grow Rich", wrote, "Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit."

I want to quote James Allen’s sayings in his book By Ways of Blessedness, "Your difficulty is not contained, primarily, in the situation which gave rise to it, but in the mental state with which you regard that situation and which you bring to bear upon it."

So, keep our minds clear. Be cautious of the meaning we give to any circumstance in our lives. Whatever it might be, make sure that it is something that makes us bigger, stronger, better, or wiser in our future.