Be Positive Before Bedtime: A Reflection on a Year

Tonight, It’s just one year since the open twitter forum ‘Be Positive Before Bedtime’ – first conceived by Mischievous Mum – began. It is now supported by lots more hostesses and contributed to regularly by lots of followers. All you have to do, as the competitions say, is to simply tweet anything positive about your day between 21:00 and 22:00, any day of the week, using the hashtag ‘#bepbb’.

So… What good has it done – and does do still?

Well, it’s a lovely way to make friends, meet new people, and have a laugh. But more than that, what it’s done for me, at any rate, is to make me rethink my attitude to life. Are we each thinking about what we have and do enjoy, or what we haven’t got? Are we thankful for our blessings, or choked up with our troubles and wants?

Over the weeks and months, I’ve read many lovely nightly contributions from people I know are in many ways worse off than I am. This is arresting and humbling – in a good way.

OK – some days you wake up feeling awful. You eventually manage to stagger downstairs to make that morning cup of tea or coffee. That means, first of all, filling the kettle at the sink tap. But do you remember that thousands, no, millions of people in this world don’t enjoy the ‘luxury’ of a piped supply of clean water that’s safe to drink?

Next, you go to the cereal cupboard, only to be reminded that you finished your favourite kind yesterday, and forgot to get any more. You mutter a few unprintable words under your breath – but wait a minute… You won’t starve, will you? There are other things to eat. But, for a countless number of other people, that won’t be the case. Several thousand children in this world starve to death every day.

OK, so we have food, water, enough clothes to keep warm and decent, and somewhere to live. (I must, though, acknowledge at this point that many of the amazing and inspiring people I’ve come to know in the on-line community have had more than their fair share of worries in this regard.) What next? We have people near to us, family and friends, who together give us the sense of belonging – a priceless, wonderful thing. Together, we can encourage one another in the pursuit of honorable goals and desires, and share in the simple victories of achievement; jewels picked up along the road that is parenting, work or business, or any other facet of the complex entity that is life.

We can also share simple observations of the natural world around us. Together, we don’t need to go around blind or indifferent; we can appreciate a clear, star-lit night – of the colours of the spectrum in a dew-drop lit by the morning sun. Life can be interesting, if we allow it to be.

But yes… I know… Sometimes it seems that life needs a lot of input to get something out, doesn’t it? But, then, suddenly, there’s a result. As Iris Dement (born 1961) wrote:

Sweet is the melody, so hard to come by,
It’s so hard to make every note bend just right;
You lay down the hours and leave not one trace,
But a tune for the dancing is there in it’s place.

Have a listen!

Thank you for reading this. And feel free to join in with #bepbb any evening, from nine o’clock until ten. I’ll see you there, on this monitor screen, or my phone.

It's kind to share!
facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest