Positive

I love it when a negative is turned into a positive.
I watched the last in this series of Back Roads the other night.  It was about a little town called Nyngan.  It is smack bang in the middle of NSW.  It is basically a farming community town with a big heart.  They founded and support a charity in Uganda.  It is giving kids there a chance at something we tend to take for granted – an education.  They have founded and funded through fund raising events, a school.
Nothing remarkable in that.  Nyngan could be any town in Australia really.  What really is remarkable to me is that Nyngan is on the Bogan River in the Bogan Shire.  I did not know the Bogan River or shire even existed. I have never heard the term Bogan used as a compliment.  It is always used as a derogatory term.
The people of this town were faced with a choice.  To me they would have been justified in throwing up their hands and saying woe is me.  They could have tried to change the name of the Bogan River and shire.  However they did not do any of the above.  What they did was, commission someone to build “the big bogan.”  They reasoned that other towns had like the big pineapple and big sheep or the big prawn, so they made the big Bogan.  Now instead of people passing by and not giving the town a second thought, people come from all over to have their photo taken at the foot of the big Bogan.  In fact a whole industry has arisen and produces Bogan artefacts like thongs and caps and other things.
Being on the Bogan River was definitely a negative, but they turned it into a positive.
No matter which way I look at it, having a stroke is a negative.  I can throw up my hands and say woe is me or I can look for and act on the positives.  Ok so I can’t run and jump and do hand stands like I used to (well I was never really into hand stands) but when I think about it there are positives.
I now have more time to write which I love doing, and garden, and to do other things.  Once upon a time I did these things, but I was time poor.   Now I have more time to do them.  I certainly respect people’s boundaries, but I have more time to write emails, and phone folk to make sure they are ok.
I sure would prefer not to have had the stroke, but positive can come out of it if I want.