Finding Beauty (or Wisdom) in Some Ugly Past Life Events

What is something I consider as “ugly” — war, violence, failure, hatred — while trying to find beauty, or a sense of hope, in my thoughts.

I believe that there is nothing more ugly than war, with violence not too far behind.  I pray that I never have to experience these things.  However, what I want to write a little bit about something I know quite well…hatred in general…but hatred of self in particular.

I have discussed this issue throughout via different posts….

From childhood (being teased and laughed at because  you talk funny…the word used was “proper”,  whatever that suppose to mean, they were jealous), through college and work, especially early days of getting in the work force, and to an extent, even now (not getting to second base…also known as step two of the job interview)because you don’t have the skills because you don’t have that certain “something something”.  I hated who I was, and yet as a child did not know really how to fix it(was always told that so-and-so can dance, had good hair, and had lots of friends…why can’t my child?)and even as a young adult, if I could buy the clothes, lived where “they” lived, anything to fit in,  I be with “those in the know”, so to speak.   I don’t have to tell you how that worked out.

Fast forward to now.  Was there any beauty, anything worth taking away from this?

Yeah. The beauty in this is , I have taken what I has happen and am learning from this(life is a big classroom, you will always be learning) and formulate a plan to go forward, not back (someone used that in a campaign…sounded good, so I will use it too).  It has taken me a lifetime to learn some of these lessons because there were times you had no
” go to” person, so you had to figure it out on your own, right or wrong, for better or worse.

I was not the only one who went through some trials ( and some were much uglier than others), and certainly will not be the last.  I came across the following quote on my Facebook page, and it sums up what I feel now in making peace with the low points in my past.  

It goes something like this:

I’ve made mistakes in my life.
I’ve let people take advantage of me, and I accepted way less than I deserved.
But, I’ve learned from my bad choices and even though there are some things I can never get back and people will never be sorry, I’ll know better next time and I won’t settle for anything less than I deserve.

I would also like to add in closing,  we are all ongoing works in progress, always learning and evolving.