Haim G. Ginott says what I believe to the absolute core of my being. We are the decisive element in our lives. We often play with that power like children handling dynamite. Often for years. Often for our whole lives.

Recognizing and harnessing our personal power can push us to stand down from our automatic reactions and nurture an internal shift in perspective. It can require some years to begin to consistently see “ordinary” things as miraculous.

To watch a brilliant red cardinal frolic on a tree branch with its devoted and dowdy mate.

To watch my adult son – as I did last night – feed mushrooms to his pet tortoise, Sheldon.

The birth of anything. And sunsets. OMG sunsets that take my breath away and overwhelm with a sense of awe over their dazzling and transient beauty.

That said, owning that we are the decisive element in our lives and in the lives of others is a lot of responsibility to put in the hands of one puny, little human. We all have that power, if only we choose to recognize and own it.

Some days are easier than others to appreciate the impact we have on others and in our own lives. The state of our inner state and how that manifests in the world can be the truest litmus test of health and a balanced state of well-being.

There is a synchronicity that seems to follow me when I am feeling settled and at peace inside. It can manifest as simply as it did for me driving home last night. All of the traffic lights – and there were many – turned green one after the other on my drive home in what felt like a kind of choreographed ballet.

It is easy to dismiss that sort of thing as a non-event or coincidental or meaningless. You might more readily appreciate its’ miraculousness when you have had the opposite happen and one traffic light after the other ominously and consistently turns yellow or red just a few yards away from the crosswalk. So we sit. And sit.

We can choose to see something like choreographed traffic lights as mini-manifestations of miracles in the way Albert Einstein identified:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

I struggle with that truism and strive to see the miracles in my daily life. And when I do, it is noteworthy how often traffic lights progressively go green one after the other as if I have personally orchestrated it.

Not saying precisely that manifesting miracles is a true superpower we all have if we but recognize it. Not saying it isn’t neither.

But when such mini-miracles happen in my own life, I am happy to be open and accepting enough of these “free gifts from the Universe,” to note them and to appreciate them. Whatever the source and wherever they come from.

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.

If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming. ~ Haim G. Ginott

(Book: Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers https://amzn.to/44hmeSt)