How To Change A Life

The little things can make a big difference. A 5-minute video and a few paragraphs of reflection, it doesn't seem like much, but it lifted my spirits a little just now, and a good attitude can make a big difference.

It works for good things and bad things. A compliment can go a long way in affecting someone else's mood, but so can an insult. A short phrase, mentioned in passing, could change someone's outlook on the day, and (though I may be stretching this) that could change their life. I once had an idea for a movie where one person, for no real reason, says or does something mean to a random stranger. That throws the random stranger into a bad mood, and he says or does something even more mean to someone else. The process continues until someone does something tragic, like a shooting, very negatively affecting the person that started the cycle. The cycle-starter feels miserable. Then the scene transitions back to where the first person does something mean to the stranger, only this time, he does something nice instead. This leads us into a montage where everyone in the movie, when they would have done something mean, they do something nice instead, bringing us back to the last person in the cycle, the shooter, who throws his guns into the river instead. The shooting never happened.

Now, Hollywood would probably end the movie before the What-If-Everyone-Had-Been-Nice montage, but it's important to me that we remember that for every negative, there's a positive. If kicking someone when they're down could really hurt them, then lifting them when their down could really help them. That's my logic, anyway.

A short, 5-minute video and a few paragraphs of self-reflection don't seem like they could change my day, let alone my life, but they can change my attitude for a few hours, they can make my day go better, they can help me feel the Spirit once or twice before I start my day. And that can really change my life.