Look For The Good

<p>Laura Ingalls Wilder had a hard scrabble existence. From the Kansas prairies to the backwoods of Florida, she and her family eked out a life from some of the most unforgiving environments on the planet. That’s what being a pioneer was really like. It wasn’t glamorous, it was <em>hard.</em></p><p>Yet, <a href='https://geni.us/4ASIb'>what comes through in her work</a> is the joy and happiness and beauty she managed to see despite all that hardship. “There is good in everything,” she later wrote, “if only we look for it.”</p><p>That’s what many of the best Stoic exercises are about—looking for the good. Or at least realizing that we have some <em>choice</em> in seeing things one way or the other. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/epictetus/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=look-for-good'>As Epictetus said</a>, ultimately it’s not things that upset us, it’s <em>our judgment and opinions about things that do</em>. So, conversely, we choose not only to not be upset, but to be happy, to be grateful, to see life as an adventure that we can make the most of. </p><p>The task before you today is to look for that good, in anything and everything that you do. Because it’s there. If Laura Ingalls Wilder could find it in a one room cabin, amidst tragedy and terror and pain and pestilence, then you can find it at the office, in traffic and in the confines of modern life. </p><p>We all can. </p>