I did a blog post yesterday about an old (Canadian) band called the Parachute Club.

In looking for a video of them, I ran across a video of the lead singer performing at a tribute to this man, Jack Layton, and then after doing a little more clicking on Youtube…I came across this video.

Of course, I understand that this video is really a commercial of sorts put together by people who cared about Jack Layton.

It’s a tribute.

I understand that.

But if you do a little bit of digging about this man…this politician…you’ll find that people really respected him.

That’s kind of unusual, I think. People really respected this politician. He was revered.

From the little bit I know about him, he seemed to be a pretty optimistic person. He was optimistic and acted on his optimism. He effected change where he could. He did what he could to make the world a better place.

What a legacy to leave behind.

I never know what I’ll see when I start poking around the web. Of course, some filters are necessary. You have to point carefully or you might bump up against something kind of rough if you aren’t careful.

Sometimes you accidentally bump up against something good, though.

Sometimes something good can happen.

I think that you really do find what you look for…and it’s the connections that the good things start that carry you through.

You begin with something good…and, in spite of the efforts of all the tricksters and the dark hearted souls who’d want to trap us on the side that’s not hopeful or right, for the most part….good leads to more good.

That’s as true of the internet as it is in anything in life.

Something that I’ve noticed that has to be guarded against is bumping up against the dark side when I’m nowhere near the computer.

We are victimized by the attitudes and comments of the people around us.

“The world is going straight to HELL” is a comment that probably does more damage than we know….no matter how ridiculous we know it to be.

And even if we can laugh it off…even if we have the presence of mind to know that it’s not true, that good things are still possible and plentiful, I think that some of it sticks to us…like excrement after walking around a snapping dog’s kennel to deliver a package.

A bad attitude isn’t something that attacks us on a microbial level. It’s not a germ or something carried on the wind or passed with a handshake.

It is shared, though. It’s shared freely and with great enthusiasm…like it was another kind of “calling”….like it was a responsibility to ride through the town like Paul Revere, yelling out, “BAD TIMES ARE COMING!!! BAD TIMES ARE COMING!!!”

I guess that how we “process” what we see and hear is the only real power we have.

What we allow in sometimes can’t be avoided…but what we allow to “move in” permanently is our choice. It’s usually something that we can avoid.

Sometimes, though, it’s a situation where your new tenant started out saying, “I’m just going to get one more thing from the car…I’ll only be a minute…” and then five years later, they’re still sleeping on your couch.

You can’t let bad attitudes sleep on your couch. You can’t do that.

I want to live in a way that would allow someone to feel even a small amount of hope when the day was done.

I don’t know how to be a healer.

I’m not always positive about what might happen in the future.

I want to be, though.