Do you know what the Pollyanna Syndrome is?  Do you have it?

I was an only child and for presents at Christmas and Birthday was given books.  One of these books or series of books was “Pollyanna”. 

Now I know that is dating my age, but that’s OK.

For those of you who are not familiar with the story it goes something like this.

Pollyanna was an orphan whose parents had been missionaries.  She went to live with her very rich aunt who didn’t know anything about children and put Pollyanna as far away from her as possible – in the attic for a bedroom. 

Pollyanna’s parents had taught her “The Glad Game” when she was small.  This was because they didn’t have much and even their clothes were second hand.  Guess some of us do that these days.  I know you can get some good bargains at St. Vinnies.

Anyway the idea of The Glad Game was that no matter how bad things were you were to try to find something to be glad about.  Sometimes this wasn’t very easy but Pollyanna always seemed to find something to be glad about.  For instance, the fact that her Aunt had put her in the attic meant that she was able to climb out of her window into the big tree and even though she didn’t have a mirror this was good because she couldn’t see her freckles.

So what, you say.  What are you getting at?  Well through my life many people have called me "A Pollyanna” - meaning it in a derogatory way.  At first I thought they were right but later on in life I realized that if you could find something good out of every hard lesson in life, the situation wouldn’t be as bad.   Yes, sometimes it has been hard to find something to be glad about, but if you look around you and see the conditions some people live in or the illnesses they have, you can always find something positive in your life.

Make it a challenge the next time something hard to bear happens.  See if you can find something to be glad about.  You will find that life can be a bit easier if you look at it in this way.