Today I am grateful that I have a sweet, sensitive 6-year old boy.
I want to start this blog posting with that note of gratitude, and by making a confession: I'm a cynic. I'm not always a "glass-half-full" kind of guy. And now I'm writing a blog post about seeing the best in situations, and focusing on positivity. I know, weird! But come with me on this trip, and hopefully you'll see where I'm coming from, and how I've tried to change my perspective.
Life sucks. Not always, and hopefully, not even often. But sometimes, for everyone, life sucks. That's just a basic truth. What we do when we're placed in a position that reminds us of that truism is what helps us define our own paths from it. There are cycles or spirals of behavior that psychologists talk about. Spirals of negativity, the vicious spirals, happen when bad things happen and we can't break that cycle. Something bad happens, it puts us in a bad mood, we upset someone who then responds by contributing something else bad to our day, and so it continues. But spirals of positivity occur too, virtuous cycles. Someone is nice to us, that puts us in a good mood, and we work to maintain that "high".
This posting isn't about life handing you lemons and you making lemonade; it's about setting aside those lemons and moving forward. If you were going to make lemonade, well then, great! But if you weren't planning on a refreshing beverage, then go beyond that basket of citrus and do what you were going to do.
Shawn Achor, in his amazing TEDx talk (watch it, and it will be 12 of the best minutes of your day) notes that "your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise." This Happiness Advantage, as he calls it, comes from positivity. Having a positive mindset, and being engaged in positive activities, like being grateful and actively acknowledging positive things in your life, has a positive effect on how our brains work.
So, yes, life sucks. But even when life sucks, and perhaps most importantly when life sucks, what about life doesn't suck?
Let's say that you're unhappy at work, have a boss that doesn't appreciate or recognize the contributions you make, and your coworkers frequently have egg salad sandwiches in the work fridge. Life sucks right there. But not everything about life sucks. You have a job to complain about, so right there is something you can ironically be grateful for; if life sucks at work, take a second to imagine how much more life would suck if you were unemployed.
If the "grass is greener on the other side of the fence," that has to mean that there's a side of the fence where the grass is browner. If you are able to change your perspective from what's wrong with a given situation to what's right with it, you are on the way to positive change in your life. As Achor notes, positivity is a learned capacity. Train your brain in positive ways. Try to do those little things
you can to reinforce the positive in your life. Write down one (or more) things you're grateful for every day. They don't have to be life-altering great things, just things you sincerely are grateful for.
My wonderful sweet, sensitive 6-year old was sent home from school today for pushing and hitting another boy on the playground; I left work to pick him up. Life sucks. There are lots of things I could be less than grateful for in that situation; but I am grateful he didn't hurt the other boy, and certainly grateful we won't get sued! I am grateful this can be a learning experience for him, and I am grateful this can be a learning experience for me, as a father. I can practice patience and demonstrate to him the communication skills I want him to use instead of hitting. My world isn't perfect, far from it, often enough it sucks, but there are always things to be grateful for, and if that positivity can help me break a vicious cycle, get me into a virtuous cycle and energize me, to get me through to the next day, then it sucks a whole lot less.
This has been the third entry in my weekly blog posting (with a week off last week). Please comment, share and/or suggest new topics. Thank you for reading.
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