I watched a Ted talk by Shawn Achor: Happy Secret to Better Work. It was hilarious and insightful. I recommend that you don't drink during this Ted talk because there is high possibility you may spit water all over the computer screen, but I digress. The main takeaway of the video was a practice: every day list three things that you were thankful for at work. That will lead to a happier work life. I have been doing the exercise silently in my head for the last few days and it has worked out well.
I have also ventured upon a few Facebook posts, stories of people who were miserable or depressed and then did a photography project where they listed one thing they were thankful for a day and it has altered their life (Example).
Also, Cyndie and I were talking and she shared with me how someone in her seminar got for herself that she was very critical of her husband. Whenever she was critical, she got for herself that she was "littering" in the relationship. She took on a practice at the end of the night to be thankful of her husband for one thing. That woman had a very different experience of her husband that week. That got me thinking as conversations with Cyndie often do.
I am someone who is very critical. This criticism has served me well in life. The internal and even external criticism (or feedback as some call it) provides an opportunity to always rise to the challenge and exceed expectations. Well, you know the flip side of that... it's never enough. Everything is never enough. Believe me, if there is a single flaw anywhere, I can find it. Living in that domain, I don't often stop to be appreciative of what I have and when I do, it's often short lived.
So I decided to write this blog post and forever immortalize lessons learned.
For the past year and some months, David and I have been in a relationship. I have often found myself saying words like "He's awesome, but...." For a whole year, I've been flipping between the two sides of that coin. Positive, negative, compare, contrast, repeat. I found myself being pretty miserable in the relationship a while ago and from intuition or previous training, I had forced myself to think of the good instead of the bad to mitigate the negativity. However, that's just more of the same. Positive, negative, wash, rinse, repeat.
Doing this exercise has changed my perspective. I remembered I was so frustrated just a few days ago due to some thwarted expectation one evening. In a moment of genius, I recalled this exercise. What if I could do what that woman did. Just be thankful for one thing. I did the exercise and of course, being the overachiever that I am, I immediately came up with a whole list of things that I was thankful for.
Here is the beginning...
1. David made another delicious dinner tonight.
He has been cooking 2 or 3 times a week. It's been very nice to come home from work and have a hot healthy dinner ready to eat. We have an agreement where Dennis does the grocery shopping, he does the cooking, and I do the cleaning afterwards. Dennis hasn't been joining us recently so David's been doing the shopping and the cooking. In fact, he even cleans as he's cooking. Makes my job super easy.
2. He texted me today to tell me he loves and cares about me.
Very sweet.
3. He took this weekend off so that we could spend time some time together to relax and unwind.
David works most weekends.
You know what in fact, he takes time in the evenings to visit me if we haven't seen each other in a few days. Some days I think to myself, you know I had a very long day today and I don't really want to drive all the way to visit him in traffic. I'd rather just go home and chill. Then I have to remind myself, for a whole year before he moved, he was coming to visit me a few times a week. He finishes a long day of work and goes home to shower and get cleaned up before coming over. What did I do? I used to complain that he was late and then arrive tired all the time. I never really understood how demanding his work was on him mentally and physically. Now that I work a very mentally demanding job in corporate, I can see that at the end of the day sometimes you're just a zombie and have no bandwidth to do anything.
I used to just judge and say just "generate" yourself, you can manufacture the energy. I have a lot more compassion now that I've experienced that first hand. At the end of the evening, I just want to chill and relax with someone. I don't have to put extra effort into manufacturing interest or excitement. It's just nice to unwind, not to continue to generate yourself after you've been doing that all day.
Yup, he's a nice man. No buts. You know, that exercise works. My relationship does occur very differently now.
David, I'm thankful that you bring a peace to my hectic life where I'm always reaching for the next thing. Thank you for always having a warm embrace for me to return to.
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