I am grateful for practically everything in my life. However, I don't think I express my gratitude very often. I'm out of practice.
Yesterday, while I was reading the chapter on Emotional Literacy in Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, I came to a renewed appreciation for my generally peaceful, stable childhood. My parents and I certainly have our differences, but I think they appreciate me and I am grateful for their attempts to give their oddball, humanities-ish son a good upbringing. I had freedom to move around and make my own choices, and I did—in my own introverted, awkward way. I'm thankful for their efforts and continued support. This morning, while making my daughters' lunches, I listened to this video by the more-energetic-than-I-can-handle, proud-of-his-teeth Charisma on Command guy:
His "top of the ladder" is essentially a matter of day-to-day gratefulness, of being thankful for the things you have—without fussing over all the things you don't have.I've heard this sort of idea before, that gratefulness for the everyday is the pinnacle of inner peace, and I like the guy's "Ladder" image, so I went searching for some ways to organize some gratitude.
I quickly discovered The Gratitude Challenge, a 21-Day plan for practising gratitude deliberately and methodically. Although I'm not usually a fan of "challenges" like this, I think this might be a good time to take it on. Why?
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There is no way that I could have ever imagined that I'd be in this place even a year ago. My life is practically unrecognizable to myself. From the outside, I think things look pretty-much the same, but on the inside the changes have been enormous and unprecedented. I'd like to keep most of those changes "on the inside," but I'd also like to share some of them a little. Just a little bit.
Here are the main "lessons" or things I've had to come to terms with this year, at least that I can think of tonight:
Me, I'm here on my own with the girls, working through my own stuff my own ways: through competence and relationships at work, the maintenance of positive, empathic relationships with my daughters, through reading, and through creation of content of different sorts. I've set up the microphones at the computer and hope to track down some inspiration of things to talk about and create. Here's to hoping it works out a bit.
Yesterday my daughters and I followed along with this episode of Hidden Brain as we tried to make some achievable goals. I don't have my daughters' consent to share their goals, but I can share mine: I aimed to, in the next four weeks, continue running 3-4 times a week and to try not to break down when we're having family trouble at home.
Here's the gist of the podcast from the NPR page:
Through the years, Oettingen has studied dieters, students, job seekers, love seekers, people recovering from physical injuries, and other strivers. She's found they all have something in common: Those who have stronger, more positive fantasies about reaching their goals are actually less likely to achieve them. They lose fewer pounds, earn worse grades, receive fewer job offers, stay lonely longer, recover from injury more slowly.
There's a chance that my goals might be too achievable, but I'm not so sure. I battle through a lot of emotional weight most of the time and am good at giving up on well-being practices. Not crying and continuing with running are good for me.
Oh, and on the topic of running, I broke all my records on Tuesday:
I started by wanting to run just 20 minutes without stopping, but then I broke 27. Then 37. Then 45. Now I've broken an hour. However, I'm only increasing my goal by one minute a run. So although I ran an hour and seven minutes on Tuesday, my actual goal is now at 39 minutes.
Achievable goals, baby. Yay! I've been enjoying taking bite-sized intellectual chunks out of The Book of Life for the last few weeks. Here's how they describe themselves: WHAT IS THE BOOK OF LIFE[?] That's pretty stankin' ambitious. I like it. It's an easy "food for thought" source for when I'm hungry for thought-food. And although I may not agree at times, I enjoy it. Most appealing to me at this moment is their advocacy for what they call "The Melancholy Position" in relationships. On their entry for "Loyalty and Adultery," they write, There is in a sense only one answer of sorts, and it can be called the Melancholy Position because it confronts the sad truth that in certain key areas of human existence, there simply are no good solutions. If we embraced the Melancholy Position from the start, we would need new, sadder, vows to exchange with our partners in order to stand a sincere chance of mutual fidelity over a lifetime. Certainly something far more cautionary and downbeat than the usual platitudes would be in order – for example: ‘I promise to be disappointed by you and you alone. I promise to make you the sole repository of my regrets, rather than to distribute them widely through multiple affairs and a life of sexual Don Juanism. I have surveyed the different options for unhappiness, and it is you I have chosen to commit myself to.’ These are the sorts of generously pessimistic and kindly unromantic promises that couples should make to each other at the altar. This is something I can connect with a little. I understand that "there are no good solutions." I have meandered through a few of these this year where I've encountered, enabled, and instigated problems that cause heartbreak all round, where no solution brings anybody out on top. And week after week I find myself more and more resolved to Melancholy because none of the other solutions look particularly appealing. If there was a good solution for my problems, I'd embrace it. But there isn't one.
As I take responsibility for the social and mental places I've put myself, my desire to make music and art has plummeted. Perhaps if I can embrace the Melancholy Position, I can rebuild my relationships with my partner, my friends, my self. I know that some artists have been able to embrace the heartbreak and change in their lives to create something beautiful. I'm not a romantic. I don't revel in my sadness and heartbreak. Even when I stumble into sulkiness, I don't do it as a personal expression in order to show people how sad I am. But as a non-romantic, perhaps I can jive with my musical side again if I can just embrace the Melancholy and build from there, to build from a place where I know that things won't change that much, where a singular step forward is always a comparatively important one. But I can't fully embrace the Melancholy Position yet. I still have a bunch of self-help and psychology to get through and I'd like to get through all of this in as methodically as I possibly can.
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April 2024
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