The Life is Crap Trap
Sometimes, trying to go up-market can be a downer.
Does that sound negative? Yeah, I think so too, but I’m going to stick with that lead so I can tell you why I wrote it… and then I’m going to turn this into a positive column.
I was planning to complain, so originally my second sentence was a reference to the column I wrote last week about how luxuries can become necessities that often create more problems than they solve. Then I mentioned that after sending that column, my partner and I set off to the south of England for a four-night stay in a pricy bed and breakfast on the Atlantic coast.
That’s a ploy I often use. By admitting to double standards on the luxury thing, I was paving the way to having a moan about the shoddy service we received at the B&B restaurant.
Having a go at myself first was supposed take the edge off my criticism of the food and the lame excuses the waitresses fed us instead of basic items such as boiled potatoes and fish and chips which were not available.
Fortunately, however, I opened my emails before the piece slid any farther downhill, and I read a motivational article about gratitude that made me think twice about what I was doing. The message was this week’s installment of an awareness blog my daughter’s employers send to all their workers to try to keep them mentally healthy… and she sent it on to me so that I could share it with you if I chose to.
Or maybe she sent it because she sensed I could do with an attitude adjustment. The piece explained the science behind what happens in our brains when we do things repetitively. Basically, if we moan a lot, as I may have been doing lately, it becomes easier to moan because the pathways our brains use to see things negatively get stronger with use. It’s like exercising a muscle. But if we can focus on positive things and feel gratitude, that reaction will become stronger and more likely to occur in the future.
Obviously, following that second route would make life more pleasant for the people who have to put up with our moods. But according to the scientific data in the email, it would also be good for our own happiness and our mental and physical health because lots of beneficial chemicals are released in our brains when we feel gratitude. Simple, right? The thing is… I already knew this stuff, but that didn’t stop me from falling into the life is crap trap when I couldn’t get a poached egg… and I would have dumped my mood on you if it hadn’t been for a bit of flowery motivational writing. That’s disturbing.
But I guess that’s why my daughter’s employers go out of their way to promote awareness. Evidently, they are aware that being aware isn’t simple at all. It’s something we need to work on regularly.
They say they want happy employees, so they ask them to work on awareness at least once a week. That seems very positive.
Perhaps the rest of us should do the same.