However, life doesn't really care who you are, everyone has bad breaks. What is different is how people deal with it, and how public they elect to make their misery. Those who pick to publicize their misery and wallow in it act like magnets for more misery.
Over time we've come to the conclusion that many people like misery. By having bad events in their life, they have to focus on them rather than the rest of life that is going on. They don't want to have to engage, command, and control life and by being distracted they don't have to. As long as they have problems, they can always have an excuse about why they aren't all they say they want to be or think they should be.
We also decided a number of years ago to divest ourselves of all those who like to bask in misery. Their views and attitude was infectious. This resulted in some friends being dismissed from our circle, but our happiness and opportunities have increased proportionately.
If you are one of those whom seems to have lots of bad breaks, ask yourself why. Truly poke in and see if you had some elements of self sabotage along the way. Maybe you like it. Maybe it is keeping you from facing and controlling your destiny. That is your choice, and there is no right way. You have to pick. It is up to you.
We will continue to enjoy life as a positive experience. With each bad break, like our washer breaking or my car accident that landed me in the emergency room or having Val's car totaled by a hail storm, we will alway view life's events as an opportunity for growth.
Interestingly, as we set out to recall our bad breaks of the past 5 years for examples in this post, it was very very hard to recall any of them. This further goes to show how we classify events in life. There is no doubt we've had the normal number of issues, but it is all about how we decide to honor them.
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That is so true. We to seem to distance ourselves from other couples who bask in their negative attitudes too. We don't totally avoid them or ignore them, we try to set an example for them and hope that they see that we don't drone on and on about unlucky breaks. As when my husband was diagnosed with Hodgkins. Some of our neighbors wanted to hear daily how awful it was. Well my husband wouldn't talk about it and if he did he'd remind them "it's the curable cancer." It's a sort of ego rush for them "the horrible thing in my life can beat the horrible thing in your life."
ReplyDelete@jomamma: Thank you for sharing. The whole wallow in misery thing just doesn't work for us. We elect to enjoy every aspect of life.
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