There is something about spring, the longer days, the fresh air. We open the windows to let the new growth outside into our lives, to clear away the staleness and cobwebs of winter. Maybe we wash our windows, letting the light be brighter, our vision clearer. Or start that diet so we are ready for bikini season, whether we are the wearers or the watchers. (I haven’t worn anything that skimpy since high school, but hey….)

    Should renewal wait for spring, one season a year? Do you want only that much?

     Spring cleaning, for me, includes how I live my life all year. And it takes diligence to keep those cobwebs from forming. It’s not just what the spiders leave in the corners of my house (and every once in a while, the wolf spiders, big hairy things that get about 4 inches in diameter, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they jump! try to take over my house, and my vacuum cleaner works overtime to suck them out of my life), but it’s all the other things that try to push into my life and dim my personal windows.

     I put myself on the “Do Not Call” list, which has cut down a little on the background chatter. Not completely. There are some businesses out there which seem to believe that I still really want to exterior weather-coat on my house, get my carpets cleaned, or replace my windows. I have eliminated my magazine subscriptions, refused to get a newspaper, and watch minimal TV. Why?

     For one thing, it’s cheaper. But that’s not the primary reason. A lot of incidents reported in newspapers, on TV, in magazines, or on radio are not good things. I have had people tell me that my avoidance of these things is unrealistic. I look at it from a different angle. Most of the negative things in the news are things over which I have very little, if any, control. I can’t change them. Or, if I chose one that I could change, there are too many others that I couldn’t. And a lot of people out there who would tell me I am focusing on the wrong issue, now matter which one it is. Just because.

     I know this. I also know that negative input takes energy from me. The horrible stories I cannot change. The starvation and famine. The disease. The wars. If I took everything I had, I could not fix it all. I know this. I also know that when people are exposed to something day after day, they become immune to it. The mess accumulates around them until they no longer see it. The mildew on the tile, the stain on the carpet, the scratch in the paint. We become blind to them. We no longer hear the airplanes fly over the house. We no longer smell things that tell us something is wrong. Terribly wrong.

     Perhaps I don’t want to become numb to my world. I want to pick what I know I can change, make the difference I have been given the gift to make.

     And for you. Are you making the difference you know you can?

     Or are you burying who you are in a lot of background chatter?

Copyright © 2011 Sandra Kischuk and Living Beyond Limits. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sandra Kischuk and Living Beyond Limits with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.