"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
One of the most common clichés is comparing life to the weather. There are so many quotes and phrases that do a nice job of summing up life with two extremes; sunshine and rain. I compare it to happy and sad or good and bad. I also believe the same way nature needs sunshine and rain for crops and plants to grow, we also go through the good and bad, or happy and sad, so we can experience the full spectrum of emotions during our journey here on Earth.
I started embracing this concept later in life. I initially wrestled with the idea of the dark moments in my life as being necessary for my personal growth and development. I would revert to my old ways of getting angry or upset and looking for someone or something to blame for my troubles, not wanting to claim responsibility for my actions. While developing more self-awareness I started accepting my self-defeating actions, which helped me start navigating the passing storms in my life with more clarity and less aggravation.
Photo by Hudson Hintze on Unsplash
When it is gloomy and rainy outside, I don't see it as a bad thing. Of course, it spoils baseball games and picnics. Rain can be an inconvenience, but it's also nourishing the earth while feeding the plants, animals and vegetation. I always see it as Mother Nature taking a shower and taking care of her creation. I have reflected on many of the darker periods of my life and see how I learned to further develop the virtues of patience, humility, acceptance, resilience and courage. I can truly say I am grateful for the thunderstorms and tornadoes that turned my life upside down at times. Once, I started picking up the pieces and examining them further, I could see the sunshine hiding inside. These became opportunities for growth.
I now see how experiencing the bad helps pave way for the good, especially if we are willing to dance within the rainstorms that pass through our lives instead of cursing them. We can do this by understanding that it's all part of the weather pattern of life. There will always be sunshine and rain. On those rare occasions, we see them blend to form a rainbow, which displays the colorful spectrum of light reminding us how beautiful and wondrous this world really is. We can only experience that with sunshine and rain.
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