Ignore the naysayers, stay optimistic.
Recently I heard an interview on the public radio station I listen to about a woman who had been diagnosed with some disease and was very angry. She was mad that it was recommended to her that she stay positive and happy and optimistic through her experience. She was really disgusted with all the people in our world who take challenging situations and try to make the most of them.
While I wholeheartedly agree with some of what she had to say – like the fact we do have a right to feel sad and depressed and disappointed at times, most of the stuff she spewed just made me shake my head in disbelief (perhaps because she apparantly just wrote a book about how great it is to be angry and negative and was now promoting it on the radio). What I didn’t agree with and what made me cringe because she was so adamant about it – was that she felt her state of mind and attitude had absolutely nothing to do with not only any healing going on in her body or her life, but also anyone else in her life. Her anger didn’t affect anyone else. She took this “let’s be angry” mindset further to say that, in these current economic times, we have a right to be (and should very well be) upset and depressed because of whatever our particular circumstance is – no job, no home, no money, whatever.
I could not disagree more.
While God knows I have had my bouts of sadness and fear and uncertainty and anger for a variety of reasons over the years – I THANK GOD those negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions did not carry me (at least ever for long enough to damage my spirit permanently ) where they carry so many people – through the downward spiral into the abyss that is beneath rock bottom.
These are our choices. And we only have two of them.
1) We can choose to go through this very, very brief life ANGRY at everyone and everything. We can be angry for all the jobs we never got, for all the boyfriends who dumped us and then got married straightaway to someone else’s wife before they told us they dumped us, for all the times we were never picked first for the kickball team, for all the texters simultaneosuly trying to drive and cut us off without even knowing they are in our lane, and for all those who have gone before us. (That’s a big one.)
So, yeah. We all have reasons – legitimate, fair, let’s crank-our-elbow-at-the-local-watering-hole-again reasons to be angry. That’s a give me. That’s not newsworthy. That’s nothing to write home about. So you can pick that option – and, quite simply, just be angry. When you are around your colleagues, your children, your family, your animals, your neighbors – let them all know – you have been wronged and you are angry. Period. Wear the badge of anger. Earn the reputation. Be the anger.
Option B is your other choice. You slap yourself silly. You throw ocean water on your sunwarmed face. You shake yourself free of all the knots and marbles rolling around in your head that will try to drive you down that spiral and you choose, instead, to be grateful. To be joyful. To be compassionate. To think outside yourself and to be helpful. To be happy.
You are alive. You have people who are counting on you. You are making a difference in someone else’s life. Where is there time to be angry? My days F-L-Y by so utterly fast. Time goes by so fast. There are so many ways to help others. To make the world a better place for someone else. To thank someone. To hug someone. To love. WHO HAS TIME TO BE ANGRY?
And further, who wants to be around someone who is angry? Not me.
If you are currently unemployed, look at this as an opportunity to spend QUALITY TIME with yourself, your family, your animals, and your yard. If you’ve gotten not-so-great news from the local doc, do research. Read. Get a second, a third, a fourth opinion. As long as you are breathing, there is hope.
And, above all else – PRAY.
What have you got to lose? And if feel your prayers have gone by unheard, then that will just give you one more thing to be angry about. And you’ll be happy about that.
Surround yourself with people who uplift, inspire, and empower you. Life is too short to sit on a bar stool, sleep in a stranger’s bed, or stare at someone else’s reality on tv. Get up, get moving, get praying.
Miracles happen every single moment of every single day. I am living proof of that.
