Magic Moments Monday

Late again! Same song, second verse--got called in to work until 2am last night then had a 10am appointment. So let me jump in without further delay!

A reminder about the reason and how to participate:

Mondays, for most people, are the "Ho hum, weekend's over, work is WORK, and can't wait 'til Friday" type of day. My intent is to help us begin our week with something positive, something to hold on to, to get us through the rest of the week. Your entry can be a Scripture verse, a quote, an insight, something that touched your life or changed the way you look at things. I expect some of the first entries to be from the past, until we learn to look each day for those magic moments that remind us how wonderful life really is.

Please leave a comment with a way to find your post, either the link through your signature, or insert the link, so we can all read your experience. Then, on your post, link back to this post, so others visiting you can participate if they'd like.
I am woefully computer illiterate so don't know how to make a logo or do the Mr. Linky thing, so we'll just bunt for now, okay?

Okay!

Each year our hospital puts on a "Competency Fair", where there are "stations" set up about techniques, new equipment, etc. I grumble about going in on my offdays, but it really is a good refresher. This year, they are calling for everyone to bring in their quick and easy recipes, so I assume someone in Education is putting together a cookbook of sorts to distribute. Well, I am all about getting the cooking over and done with ASAP, so I pulled out some of my trusty recipes and grabbed a deck of rubberbanded (is that a real word?) 3x5 cards to write on.

Some of the cards were yellowed on the edges and when I pulled them from the stack, found a bunch of quotes I had posted on my bulletin board at an office job I held years ago. Wow! There were some great quotes there, and I had forgotten most of them. As I sifted through them, I came across one that really stood out--well, 2 actually--but the second one is another post. This is by Charles T Jones, from a book he wrote, entitled "Life is Tremendous".

In the first chapter are three guidelines to improving your outlook on life:
1) Be learning to say something positive to everybody all the time.
2) Be learning to see something positive in everything that happens.
3) Be learning to See It Big and Keep It Simple--SIBKIS.

#1 reminded me of a compliment one of my patients gave me many years ago. First you have to understand, I am not a pretty person. I might have been okay-looking for a few years in my early 20's, but I was always a chubby little girl with glasses who grew into a fat teenager with glasses and braces and became a fat woman with glasses and slightly crooked teeth. (Let's just say the braces worked only temporarily.) I am under no delusions about my looks.

But one night, as I was busy with an older gentleman in CCU, he told me "You know, you have a nice mouth." I stammered something, don't remember what, but first chance I got, I looked in the mirror, and you know, I DO have a nice mouth. That was not an earth-shattering statement; in fact, he probably forgot me and what he said within 2 weeks of leaving the hospital, but I won't ever forget it. At a time when this man was dealing with serious cardiac issues, he took the time to give me a compliment. And he made me feel pretty for a while. He probably had no idea the impact that one little compliment has had on another human being.

So I am going to work on step #1 this week--be learning to say something positive to everybody all the time. Because it doesn't cost me anything, but it might make someone's day a little brighter.

Your turn!