Tag Archives: happiness

How to Not Sweat The Small Stuff

5 Feb

sweating

PSYCH!

Honestly? Do you guys read this thing AT ALL? In all seriousness, I wish I knew how to NOT sweat the small stuff, how to let things go (or how to “let go and let the spaghetti monster in the sky” deal with it) and how to move forward.

All three of those things are tall orders!

Even though the small stuff can feel “small,” sometimes the small stuff pushes its way up a hill. Then, some other “small” event happens that catapults that BIG ball of SMALL things down “Shitstorm Hill” and suddenly, you’re up to your heart in crap.

I truly believe that all anyone wants is to feel “okay.”  To not worry so much about what others are doing, what your exes are doing, or  how other people’s actions (although they shouldn’t) influence how we feel about ourselves and others alike.

I’m no expert, I’m just a girl who has gone through enough craptastic situations to learn a little somethin’ somethin.’  Have I learned that much? Meh. But here’s what advice I can offer for the BIG  three questions above.

How to Not Sweat The Small Stuff (For real this time)

1. No Worries, Mon – Stop occupying your brain with things you can’t control. If you don’t make space for the worry, the worry has nowhere to live. Take your brain power back by kicking those worries to the curb and evicting them from your “brain mansion”  (they’ll have to sleep on the streets with other people’s evicted worries).

Did we learn nothing from Van Wilder? “Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.”

2. Live happily…people hate that – Nothing pisses people off more than seeing you NOT sweat things. They want you to be so consumed with anger, hurt, despair (whatever the emotion may be) that you’re too busy trying to “maintain” life instead of showing life who’s boss. (For the record, it’s you.)

3. Seriously, stop being so damned serious – Life isn’t always going to be easy, fun, painless, or super-duper fabtastic. Take a minute to think about what you’re “sweating” right now. Job sucks? It’s just a job. Get a new one. Find what you want to do and live passionately.  Significant other probs? Guess what…life is too short to make bad casting decisions. Surround yourself with people who rock. Awesome begets awesome, suck begets suck. Family troubles? Forgive them. Family is family. One day you might need them to forgive you. Things just not going your way? Buck up. Karma might be a mean, mean, bitch but she’s pretty good about bringing good to those who work hard and are kind.

Be fair. Be open. Love hard. Live well. Stress less. Have more fun. Take time to appreciate the small things instead of sweating them.

How to Let Things Go (According to my therapist)

Just kidding about the therapist. She’d actually be pretty pissed to hear me say any of this. If she were real. She’s a doll I dress up and keep in the corner of my room to talk to on occasion. Creepy? Surely. Effective? You bet. Free? F’in right, doggy!

I wish I knew the secret to making this happen. Probably one of the worst qualities I possess is being unable to let things go. I hold onto things. Sure, I might “forgive you,” but I damn sure don’t forget it. Seriously, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to forget things, because I think that’s the secret to forgiving. Also, being stupid. That helps. KIDDING!*

*I’m not kidding.

Here’s what I’ve learned…joking aside.

1. Lose 10 lbs Instantly, Without Working Out – Really. It’s like taking one big life-size laxative.  The “Lap Band” of emotions, if you will. Should I keep going? I won’t. I promise.  Point is, letting things go only benefits you. Holding ON TO things benefits no one.  Do you think the person who you feel has angered, hurt you, begrudged you, is sitting there eating their insides out over what you perceive they’ve done to you?  They’re not.  Even if you’ve decided to “cut them from your life” they’re still very much there, monopolizing thoughts that could be better spent on something worthwhile. Like what is the mystery in mystery meat, and why has NOBODY figured it out already?!

2. Take Sorry at Face Value – When people apologize, believe them. Try your hardest to do that, at least. I’m not saying to believe they’re sorry for them. Believe them for you, so you can put the past to rest. Be thankful that they’re at least a good enough human to see value in apologizing.  Whether they believe it or not, whether you believe it or not, they said it. Thank them. Then breathe, stretch, shake and let it go.

3.  Appreciate the Past, Look Towards the Future, Live in the Present – Everyday something new will happen. Whether it’s good, bad, indifferent, etc…what are you going to do? If you don’t learn how to let things go, you’ll wind up pushing those “small things” up that hill until there’s an event that  sends the BIG list of SMALL things down “Shitstorm Hill,” remember? I’m a big proponent of “everything happens for a reason.” Just because you can’t see why it’s happening now, doesn’t mean it won’t eventually show itself for what it is or what it was (when the time is right).

How to Move Forward

SWEET MOSES, I wish I knew the answer to this. I really do. I wish I had some magical anecdote and I could help the world. Well, first I’d make millions of dollars, THEN I’d help the world. KIDDING!*

*Again, I’m not kidding.

I totally get why the chick from Titanic wanted to use that ray to erase her memory in the movie, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”  I do! Who wouldn’t like to instantaneously forget whatever thought, emotion, feeling is acting like a squatter in your mind? NO one told those thoughts they could stay there. BUT you were vulnerable…you left a door cracked slightly open and now…those bad or sad thoughts dwell there. Time to call the thought po-po on those mofo’s and EVICT them!

“My plan is to erase you completely, as if you never existed at all.”– Chick from Titanic in ‘ESOTSM’

1. Act More Like Chuck Norris – It’s your life and no one else’s. Take control of your thoughts that are telling you that you have NO control and teach them a thing or two about what happens when they step into your brain’s dojo. Seize your brain. Seize your thoughts. Break any thoughts into dusk that try to stop you from living happily, because they suck…and ain’t nobody got time for that.

2. Surround Yourself With People Who Don’t Suck – Not to be repetitive, but (again) awesome begets awesome and suck begets suck. There are some people who will walk, talk, and act like a friend…but are not your friend. Your goal is to figure out the good eggs from the rotten ones and only keep those who ROCK in your life. Take a look at the pack you run with. Are they mainly miserable? Or, do they radiate sunshine and happiness? You don’t have to go extreme, but finding a good middle balance is probs best.

3. Be Un-apologetically, Uniquely, YOU –   Nobody knows you better than you, so start listening to yourself. Follow your gut. Follow your heart. Follow the yellow brick road to see the wizard…

Wait a minute…wrong schpeal. Let’s try this again…

Respect yourself. Celebrate yourself. Empower yourself.

Now that’s more like it!

There are no right or wrong answers on how to get over things, how to leave things that deserve to be left behind, or how to keep the past where it belongs…in the past. All you can do is get out of bed every day and make the best of what you have. Do something small every day and soon you’ll find that all the small things you’ve been building on have led you to a mountain of happiness and strength and more importantly, led you to YOU.

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Another Lesson in Common Sense: Respect!

17 May

 

“Re-spek it…befoe you re-gret-tit!”

 

About a month ago, I was in line at Starbucks and I overhear this lady turn to her friend and say… “And I told him…you better respek it…befoe you re-gret-tit.” Her enunciation, the emphasis of each phrase…I was both seriously amused and on her side from that moment on.

And why not? Clearly, she was right.

Whomever it was, should respect the proverbial “it” or they are bound to regret it. My friend and I were discussing our most recent situations, and what seems to happen to us as women when we enter into a new experience. Last night on the phone, I said, “You know…it’s not that we’re dumb girls. I actually like to pride myself on being relatively smart about most situations. Yet, as I relay the series of events to you…it dawns on me, that I am the champion of the ‘Bad Decision Olympics.’ Gold medal champion, to be specific…and you my friend are the runner-up.”

Our stories:

(Hers first, and let’s call her Jen)

Jen was a college roommate of mine, completely by accident. Someone whom I was introduced to and we just gelled. After college, I moved home, she moved to ATL and now to D.C. Our exteriors appear similarly rough, we come off impervious to pain that relationships with others may cause even though if you break through our façade of an exterior, you’d see our interior is really marshmallow goo. The past few relationships for Jen have been men who are between their 40’s and 50’s. She’s 27. Clearly, not ok and we’ve had a conversation about that.

For someone her age, the maximum without being creepy is around 35-37. No more than 10 years apart, or it’s seriously too large of a generational gap and just plain gross…to be honest. This new guy, he’s our age…which was a good start, until, she starts divulging the rest of the story…

1. He works with her.

2. He’s her superior (one of them).

3. He has a girlfriend.

4. His girlfriend WORKS at the restaurant.

5. He’s a known, arrogant douche.

6. Please see numbers 1-5 and repeat until the obvious question of, “WHAT is she doing?” washes over you.

As soon as she told me that, I became Homer Simpson, slapping my forehead with a resounding… “D’OH!”

One step forward, six steps back.

So the story continues, and I won’t lie…at points, this sounds kind of sexy. He’s a wine sommelier; they work at an important upscale Washington, D.C. restaurant. Each shift they work together, they give each other flirty stares, do things to entice the other…and then when everyone goes home for the day, they act on those passions in the back room while people could be around. Sounds like a fiction based romance novel a little, no?

I told her…just as Eleanor Roosevelt once said (Wu-Tang Clan maybe?) you have to “protect ya neck!”

Something happens to women when they start a new relationship, and maybe to be fair to men…the sensitive ones may feel this too. It’s like we put these huge blinders on and get all gaga, seeing nothing but rainbows and sunshine pouring out of these people’s rear ends! We regret to see that this is doomed from the get-go.

We can reform, we can remold…we can rebuild, we have the technology!

People…let me give you a piece of advice (I never follow, clearly or I wouldn’t be telling you my story). No one changes. They may modify themselves, tweak something here and there…but overall, people do not change. Find someone who likes/love you as you are and likewise, because everyone deserves to feel as loved as possible as often as possible! SO…one night, they’re having relations in the office and someone finds them. Shocking. Jen also recently broke her finger, and is unable to work, which means she has been home. Where has Mr. Romantic been? M.I.A. Why? Because…he has gotten what he wanted, they’ve fleshed out their physical attraction while he’s been able to keep his girlfriend, his life, and his job…barely.

I love talking to Jen about our situations, because we’re both so incredibly hypocritical. We KNOW that these situations aren’t going anywhere, know they are doomed and yet we forge on. Why is that?

My situation is less severe, and could seriously take its own post to describe what’s been going on. Basically, I met someone in a strange way, that I was not anticipating liking.

1. He’s older, near the borderline of too old, but nothing crazy.

2. He lives far from here, well…40 miles. Not that far.

3. I think he may live some sort of strange double life.

4. People who are mutual friends say terrible things about him.

5. He never follows through Ever.

Although anyone who knows me would think, “you wouldn’t stand for that!” Something about the aggravation of proving that “you should be loving me, following through and being awesome,” keeps me standing by. The whole point of this (it’s there, somewhere), is that respect isn’t something you should have to beg for. I think what happens, is that people forget that the people THEY are dealing with are also…people. Treat me kind, speak to me properly, and think about how you would feel if I treated you like a pig for having a girlfriend and trying to hit it with me. Or, how I SHOULD have treated you like a creepy old man who found me in a strange way, who hasn’t taken me on one respectable date, and who was so worried about my age and me being immature, yet it appears the other way around.

RESPECT the people in your life. RESPECT who they are and where they come from, or respect them enough to at least tell them the truth. Show a little honesty, be upfront and let them decide if they can handle it and be a part of it. Life can be a very lonely journey alone, and as the very wise woman said…if you don’t respect “it,” you may live to regret it.

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