Yesterday was Valentine’s Day as you all know. I realize it’s a little strange, but it always brings me back to high school. A romantic at heart (I know, some of you who know me might disagree), but back in those teenage years, I always had such high anticipations for the long awaited Valentine’s Day. I hoped and prayed that the one person I had my eye on would finally come around, realize I was the one for him, and I would finally get asked out on that long awaited date. Well, that never happened and I would go home on Valentine’s Day with a bad attitude about life in general.
It is funny how one situation can change our attitude about things so drastically. I realize now, that if I had changed my attitude and line of thinking, I would have realized that I was a pretty lucky girl and one day those boys wouldn’t matter anymore and life would go on. Of course, telling that to a teenage girl can be pretty pointless and I would have laughed at those words. But it got me to thinking, that we can experience these same things in our adult lives as well.
Over the years, I have met soooo many people coming to me, asking me, “Why can’t so and so just change” or “Why can’t they act differently to me?” If I had that magic wand to make people act the way they should, I would be able to retire incredibly early. What I have found most helpful in both working professionally with others and in my own life, is looking at how we can change our overall attitude and line of thinking and do what WE need to do to best deal with what we may not be getting from others in our lives.
It’s no big surprise that people in our life are going to frustrate the heck out of us. In-laws, siblings, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, bosses, or anyone we come into contact with and have a relationship are going to irritate the heck out of us at one time or another. Is it worth it to your own level of stress to make a big deal out of it? Or would it be more beneficial to accept that this person will not do and say the things you think they should and act on what did happen? This is not an easy task to do. In high school, it probably would have been helpful to me to accept that this certain person just wasn’t interested and realize that there was someone else who was. It could have saved me some heartache and bad attitudes that just brought me down, when I could have been enjoying some pretty good times instead of sulking in my own little world. (Of course then I might not have married that other person, couldn’t resist for all of you that have known me since high school :0)
This is also not something that happens overnight. It takes practice. We will still get ticked at others, we are human, it happens. But we only got one shot at life and isn’t it more enjoyable to live life instead of stewing on all of those things that we really have no control over? Take control over your attitude and your perception of things, and you might find that things are a little easier to manage.
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