I had a great conversation today with my wife. We were laying down to go to sleep after she finished a bit of a rough day. Many people in her family have dealt with depression issues and she was also reacting after her family had some very negative news about a close family friend being diagnosed with brain cancer and only have a short time to live.
Our conversation went as follows and I’m writing it down because it was very meaningful, so hopefully it could potentially positively impact anyone else who is reading this. Plus my wife made a promise to me, so I want to document this promise in written word.
ME: Lets find a cheat code to you being happy, are their any little things that you can do throughout a day that you know make you happy? And if not “happy” then at least little things that can by themselves start to turn a day around? I’ve written bout this before in my Simple Joys post. She decided to think over the next day and to write down any ideas that came to her head.
At the end of the day she didn’t really have any ideas written down so we sat down and talked it through, and luckily we were able to think of one together! To respect her privacy I wont share the idea, but it was very meaningful to her and something that she decided would turn any potential bad day around; and instantly give her a happy thought that she could focus on for the rest of the day. It was perfect, and I got so happy for her that she now had this little cheat code she could access anytime she felt like it! Anyway back to our conversation:
I asked her to promise me, out loud that she would try to use this cheat code anytime she was down. In addition to that, I asked that she promise me that she would figure out a way to find the positive side of things life throws at her, or at least some type of positive take away. ** If it was some kind of adversity she could use that as motivation to work harder, or if it was in fact actual good news she would bask in that good news and celebrate it without thinking beyond the current good news and focusing on any aspect of the situation that could go wrong in the future. A big part of her ability to make me this promise was that there is no timetable on when she will achieve this ability to see aspects of everything positively. But she did more than just commit to “trying” to do it. She acknowledged that she is in control of her thoughts and emotions, she will achieve her goal some day, but there is no rush. Everyone works at different speeds and in different ways. Its important to note there is a fine line between admitting there are circumstances beyond our control, and committing to the idea that we react to every situation in our own heads, we control the narrative and the impact any situation has on our own lives. Even in the case of loosing a loved one, we can choose to focus on all of the positive memories that we had with that person, and the positive affects they had on our life, which have stayed with us long beyond the absence of their physical presence.
And on the lighter side, I also got my wife to admit that there really is no point in wasting her energy on being down or sad/upset for too long because I will always be there with my relentless positivity to force happyness and fun on both of us because I am her husband & I am a happy person. ** I will drag her into happiness if/when I ever have to 🙂 It is way more fun to be happy, and to spend mental energy focusing on what could go right instead of what could go wrong. Most things in life have way better odds than 50-50 of going well or at least being somewhat close to how we want them too. And hell even at 50-50 you still have a coin flip of things going well, you can just as easily spend the vast majority of your time focused on the good/fun parts, and then in the off chance that a negative situation does roll your way just pause, soak up the feeling, ask yourself if this negative result was because of a past decision you made. If it was, identify how you could choose better in the future if this situation or anything similar comes your way. If it wasn’t something in your control, accept that life has a certain level of unpredictability. At the end of the day sometimes the chips don’t fall the way you want them to, and things beyond our control are the cause. In those very rare cases the only thing you can do is tip your cap to the universe, and then wake up the next day and be thankful you are still hear to enjoy another day 🙂
**Everything within reason, a loved one being diagnosed with a fatal illness does not qualify, we can all be down about that for a period of time.
**I declare that in public to my friends as a defacto social contract and a sudo self filling proficiency. Everyone expects me to be happy anywhere I go, I usually am by default happy every day and everywhere I go so in the rare case that I’m not and I have a social occasion to attend my mind almost goes on auto pilot and switches gears to being happy since that is my routine, that is what I, and everyone else expect :).