Sometimes bad things do happen to good people. Innocent people do suffer. Drunk drivers walk away without a scratch from accidents that kill innocent victims. Model couples get divorced. Some children who grow up in good homes get lost to the streets. People lose jobs because the company closes. People who are in good health get sick. It is called life.

It rains on the just and the unjust. Life can be hard. Life can be tough. Life can be unfair.

If you live long enough, you are going to go through some unpleasant moments at some point. There are no special privileges.

The economic environment in which we now find ourselves has generated lots of questions. There are many who are wondering if things are ever going to get better. On a weekly basis, the resounding question remains who is responsible for the condition in which we find ourselves? There is lots of blame to pass around. However, there comes a time when we must stop casting blame and look within ourselves. When we take inventory of our lives, we will discover that many times our questions stem from fear of the unknown.

One of the first things we do when we walk into a dark room is to turn on a light. Why? It is the fear of the unknown. Often times we fear what we cannot see. Isn’t that amazing. We automatically generate a fictitious fear.

When I was younger, I was always fascinated by nighttime shadows. I would attempt to outrun my shadow. Of course I was never successful, but I learned some valuable lessons about the shadows of life. I learned that in order to produce a shadow there must be light. Of course that is a fundamental statement. Yet it is powerful because it helps us to understand regardless of how dark it is, as long as we can see a shadow, we have the potential to come out of the dark. Then, I discovered that the further we are from the light, the larger the shadow appears.

If we pay attention to the shadows in our lives, they will appear bigger than what they actually are.

Finally, the closer we get to the light, the more minute shadows become. There are many economic shadows being cast during these times of financial hardships. It is time for us to move closer towards the light, but if light seems far from your world there are lessons to be learned from nature.

Most flowers bloom during the day. However, there are flowers that thrive during the night. For instance, the Brazilian Night Flower is a beautiful flower that must have just the right amount of darkness in order to bloom. For this night bloomer, light actually hinders it from blossoming to its full potential. The Brazilian Night Flower is not fearful of the dark; instead, it uses darkness to its advantage. This flower teaches us a very valuable lesson.

During dark times in our lives we should take lessons from the Brazilian Night Flower until light appears. Instead of withering away in the dark, we should use the darkness to our advantage and start blooming.

Darrio Melton is the state representative-elect for Dallas County.