Pendulum or Dominos

A number of conversations lately have resulted in the following thoughts:

1. From Good, comes Good
2. From Bad, Good can come
3. Bad decisions create more bad decisions
4. Good for you may be bad for others

So I started to consider my perspective of some of my recent situations.  

1. From my meditation, I have so many gifts.  I am part of a community, I belong (in the real sense) to a shul, I learn from others and others learn from me.  My children witness this growth and our conversations have become more meaningful.
2. During a recent confrontation, I was happily surprised when I received an apology and the conversation turned productive and rewarding.
3. My bad decisions come when I am frustrated, tired and I can't pause to take a breath.  These usually occur with my kids and when we are all in the height of our struggles, we just keep yelling and hopefully I find the strength to walk away.  It is only later that I can see that we are all tired and stressed.  In fact, as always in hindsight, I can pinpoint the 5-6 bad decisions in a day that had led me to being non-productive, angry and frustrated.
4. I don't mean that "I win, you lose."  By this one, I think that I realized in several situations that solutions that work for me, may or may not work for others and in fact, could have a negative impact on others.  This week, I was in a few conversations where I gave a response that was received well and another with a similar response was given negative feedback.  

My life is a mixed bag and I choose to be positive.  Some days, my life feels like a pendulum swinging back and forth waking up each emotion as it swings.  There is beauty in the pendulum as well as noise. There are days when I think my life is more like dominos and every thing I do is connected - good and bad. I like the idea of the dominos because I am always in awe of the power of connection and how each connection leads to another and another.  

Today, my life is sweet with connections; I am surrounded both personally and professionally with creativity, kindness and generosity.  Shabbat Shalom - may your Shabbat be like the dominos linking us all together in peace, love and prayer.