A mid-July horoscope read: "With the right attitude, you can make almost anything happen. The key is having the patience to continue even when you don’t see results." For some reason, I cut the section out of the paper and stuck it in a book. Do you ever do such a thing? At the time, those words seemed important. Perhaps I was having a "bad attitude" day and needed a reminder to buck up. Today when I found the small scrap of paper tucked away I wondered what had been going on that July 21st that these words spoke to me.

Attitude. I often tell my children–and myself–that it’s time to make an "attitude adjustment"…..that re-thinking of a perspective on a situation or my behavior or the behavior of someone else.  Some people call it  "reframing". It is a helpful tool when I get stuck in being "right" or wanting things done the "way we’ve always done it."

The second part of this horoscope may be the most difficult…. having the patience to continue even when you don’t see results.…or at least the results you wanted to see. For me this is where faith comes in…faith that there just might be something at work that will bring about a greater good than I ever could have imagined. I have certainly seen times in my life where I have planned, worked hard, given my all, only to have things turn out much differently than I wanted, sometimes in ways that seemed like failure. Then, a few days or months or years go by and I see that the thing that didn’t happen really opened the door for the better thing to come about in my life. It is a strange and difficult life lesson.

Attitude. Patience. Faith. Three words packed with promise. Good words to walk into the world with today.

"Does one really need to fret about enlightenment? No matter what road I travel, I’m going home." Shinsho