Ah, winter in Wisconsin. Not my favorite season. I am more of a beach and sunshine sort of man. Still, there is those strange bits of wisdom that you can only get in the snow. As I was driving to work at roughly 4:30 in the morning, this bit of wisdom was brought to my attention. One of the not-so-great things about living in a cold climate is having to scrape the ice off your windshield before heading out. When start work before the sun comes up, you do not always do the most thorough job. As I was making my way down the street, I noticed there was a bit of ice stuck under one of my wipers. This created a nice streak across the window.
Here is the funny thing about a streak on your windshield. Tell me if you can relate. Whether that streak is right above the defroster, or on the top of the windshield as mine was, it always seems to be right where you are looking. A good 90% of my windshield was clear, yet my eyes kept being drawn to this area where the streak was. It occurred to me this was a great parallel for life. 90% of our life can be going great and all we can fixate on is what is not going great. This is especially true if you have a toothache.
Just like driving in winter, if we are staring at the annoying streak, we will miss all the wonderful beauty there might be around us. If we are focused on what is wrong in our life, we will not appreciate the love, beauty and all that is right within our life. The flip side of this is after the car warmed up and the windshield defrosted, the ice melted and the streak was gone. In life, we must often wait and soon our problems will melt away. I could have also pulled over and addressed the problem sooner. Just like in life, we can take action and addressed the issue that is vexing us.
I hope next time you see a streak on your windshield, instead of becoming annoyed, remember this little bit of wisdom. Perhaps it will remind you to look at all of the beauty in your life and not just fixate on the streaks on the windshield of life.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 