Are You Missing Out On Your Rainbows?

Advice is cheap and often borrowed, refined and repeated. It has been said that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery and I am a master flatterer. I have had several occasions over the past month to use the term “negaholics” in discussing how some people can only see the negative in everything. I can’t take credit for the term because I first heard it in the book Negaholics: How to Overcome Negativity and Turn Your Life Around (1999, Wellspring/Ballantine) by Cherie Carter-Scott. It is a quick read and focuses on people who have low self esteem and always expect the worst in themselves. That becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy which usually results in failure and can also create an environment that takes others down with them. Even if you don’t read the book the title alone gives the best advice. My words to a job seeker group last week was not only to avoid negaholics but also to guard against becoming one.  It seems to be human nature to endure life’s storms and never see a rainbow, but that doesn’t have to be true.

The following is from an email that I wrote to my daughter while she was in college. She and I shared little nuggets of our writing from time to time. I’m not sure who started this mini-tradition and I am also not quite sure who was encouraging whom to do creative writing. It seemed to work for both of us. Today, she and I are closer than ever even though she lives 1013.8 miles from Daddy (but who’s counting anyway). Perhaps it is because we shared ideas, thoughts and feelings along with the usual parental oversight and rule enforcement that allowed us to build a stronger relationship. I recently stumbled onto this narrative in a journal and have shared it with other members of my family. The incident that made me write this happened as I was driving back to Danbury from White Plains on I-684 in New York State.

After two dreary days this week, the sun finally started to peek out from behind the clouds right before it set yesterday.  The first day of Spring could not have been more unceremonious if someone had intentionally planned it that way. Driving home from work with the roads still wet from the earlier afternoon showers, the setting sun painted an orange tinge to the bottom of the gray clouds that were still looming overhead.  I breathed deeply and felt content to see such a beautiful sight when none had been expected. And this was only the prelude.

Even though I’ve learned to appreciate good things when they are given to me, I still haven’t learned to look for them.  In fact, I was utterly shocked when just around a bend in the road was a massive pillar of color…a rainbow that just appeared out of nowhere. There was something almost Biblical about seeing this sign after all that had been on my mind for the past few months. Even though my intelligence told me that it was simply the Western glow of the sun passing through tiny prism-like droplets in the East to create this vision my heart was filled with the sight and my mind was relaxed into contentment. I thought, “The signs placed around us are for us to enjoy and to help illustrate the deeper meanings of life.”

The first life-parallel that entered my mind as I continued homeward was the fact that this sight would have been less than spectacular if it had not been preceded by a dismal gloominess. The light of the bow seemed to actually spawn from the darkness and its presence was enhanced by the contrast.  I remembered the old cliché that we could feel no joy if we had no pain, but somehow this always sounded shallow until this illustration made it seem real.  I’ve never thought to stop and appreciate the concept of a rainbow on a bright and sunny day.  Maybe I’ll try that sometime.

Continuing onward and feeling contented that I had come to see the “real meaning” of this heavenly sign, I was suddenly snatched back to the physical world when some poor rainbowless soul in a black 7-series BMW passed me on the right and cut quickly back in front of me. Even though I had been daydreaming, I was still traveling ten miles per hour over the speed limit in the middle lane on I-684.  I was subconsciously keeping with the flow of traffic in the three northbound lanes and should not have been an irritant to any other driver. As I wiped the oily road spray thrown up by the Beamer from my windshield, the thought came to me that the rainbow was there for everybody to see and yet some choose not to see it…or understand it.  It wasn’t MY rainbow.  It was EVERYBODY’S rainbow.  How many rainbows have I missed because I didn’t look up from the gloom?  Next time I am in a hurry to get nowhere maybe I’ll look for one.

Finally, as I was driving home tonight, I realized that I missed the rainbow. It was a whole day later and I looked for it, but of course it wasn’t there.  It is funny how that few seconds of beauty is remembered more than days of darkness.  I guess that is as it should be.  I never realized how much power is possessed by the rainbows in our lives.  It also points out the relative insignificance of the clouds.  They were there, but are not as important or, in the long run, as memorable.

Photo credit: Copyright © 123RF Stock Photos