My third goal is one I just created for myself this week, and it is a goal I created to both be healthier and happier. It is to laugh more and be angry less. Maybe this should be an obvious thing to change in my life - and maybe because it is something everyone should do - but it is something I seem to need to remind myself about so often that I finally decided to make this one of my formal goals, so I start to make conscious choices to do this.
Laughter is the best medicine, after all, so it will really help me to be happier AND healthier to laugh more. It should not be difficult to do this - I have a good job and work with a lot of great people, and we have a lot of fun there. I have good friends and we have fun keeping in contact. That's all good. But one of the other things I mean by laughing more is to find joy in the simple things in life. Counting my blessings, in other words.
This has been a challenge for me in the last few years. Things have been very difficult for me, and it seems as though, for way too long, every opportunity I've gotten to take a step forward has cost me at least five. It has been a very long, very discouraging struggle, and it has been extremely easy for me to focus on what I've lost rather than the good things that have come my way. But there have been good things, and it will do me a lot of good to focus on that rather than the negative.
Which brings me to the "be angry less" part of this goal. Much of struggle I've experienced has been because of the actions of another person. It has been very easy for me to be angry with him and put the blame on him for everything. In order for me to get past this and really appreciate the life I have now is to do these things:
1. Be honest with myself and admit that part of the reason I am where I am is because of decisions I made. The actions that caused the serious issues I'm dealing with were committed by another person, but I made the decision to let that person into my life. He did it, but I put him in a position where he could.
2. Accept that this is in the past. I can't change anything about what happened. I can only change what I do with it now. This is hard for me, my brain doesn't seem to work this way. I keep replaying moments over and over again, opportunities I missed to make other choices that would have made a difference. But that does no good, and I have to put this in the past and move on.
3. Forgive both of us. He made the choices he made, and there really is nothing he can do now to make things right. It doesn't do any good to withhold forgiveness. I made the choices I made, and I made them for my own reasons, and those reasons seemed valid at the time. Beating myself up over the past doesn't help me move forward.
4. Learn from this situation and make better choices in the future.
Laughter is the best medicine, after all, so it will really help me to be happier AND healthier to laugh more. It should not be difficult to do this - I have a good job and work with a lot of great people, and we have a lot of fun there. I have good friends and we have fun keeping in contact. That's all good. But one of the other things I mean by laughing more is to find joy in the simple things in life. Counting my blessings, in other words.
This has been a challenge for me in the last few years. Things have been very difficult for me, and it seems as though, for way too long, every opportunity I've gotten to take a step forward has cost me at least five. It has been a very long, very discouraging struggle, and it has been extremely easy for me to focus on what I've lost rather than the good things that have come my way. But there have been good things, and it will do me a lot of good to focus on that rather than the negative.
Which brings me to the "be angry less" part of this goal. Much of struggle I've experienced has been because of the actions of another person. It has been very easy for me to be angry with him and put the blame on him for everything. In order for me to get past this and really appreciate the life I have now is to do these things:
1. Be honest with myself and admit that part of the reason I am where I am is because of decisions I made. The actions that caused the serious issues I'm dealing with were committed by another person, but I made the decision to let that person into my life. He did it, but I put him in a position where he could.
2. Accept that this is in the past. I can't change anything about what happened. I can only change what I do with it now. This is hard for me, my brain doesn't seem to work this way. I keep replaying moments over and over again, opportunities I missed to make other choices that would have made a difference. But that does no good, and I have to put this in the past and move on.
3. Forgive both of us. He made the choices he made, and there really is nothing he can do now to make things right. It doesn't do any good to withhold forgiveness. I made the choices I made, and I made them for my own reasons, and those reasons seemed valid at the time. Beating myself up over the past doesn't help me move forward.
4. Learn from this situation and make better choices in the future.
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