Blog
Written by Holly M. Hohlbein
Thursday, 18 September 2008 19:04
“Can we talk about clouds and the silver lining thing?” my daughter asked me recently. She is my middle child: quiet and reflective; a deeply profound thinker, trying to stand out without getting noticed. “OK” I said, because I love her questions. (She once asked me “What’s the most perfect thing you’ve ever seen?” Not the most beautiful or the most amazing. The most perfect. I wanted to say “you” but I held back because I have three kids and they are a 3-way tie for my most perfect.). “I don’t get the silver lining thing at all. Clouds are puffy and white and beautiful and make cool shapes in the sky. The ones that have a silver lining, isn’t that because they have become rain clouds?” “Um, yeah” I said, not sure where she was going. “Well then it doesn’t make any sense. The silver lining is supposed to be the good part that goes with something bad, right? But the silver lining of a cloud is the bad part of something good.” I thought about it. “Maybe the people that thought that saying up had a different reality then we do. Say, if they were farmers. When clouds blocked the sun from their crops that was bad, but the silver lining meant rain and that was good.” “Hmm…maybe” she said, unconvinced, as she walked away to ponder other adult contradictions. I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea that things aren’t always so easily categorized as “good” or “bad.” It depends a lot on context. If you start with the premise that things just are, then you might surprise yourself with how you look at them differently. Try switching the labels on “good” and “bad” and see how it shifts your thinking. Re-framing our thoughts can be a powerful way to shake out our dusty old way of doing things and bring us fresh insight. Clouds. Silver linings. Perfection. What’s your frame?
