My husband shared the story with me of a man he used to work with. Every day, the man would open his lunch bag, take out his sandwich, and say "Ham and cheese, again", and then eat his lunch.
After observing this for a couple of weeks, a co-worker asked the man, "If you don't like ham and cheese every day, why don't you tell your wife?" To which the man replied, "Why would I tell my wife? I make my own lunch every day."
I hope that provided you with a little chuckle, but there is a profound lesson in that little story. Many times we have the power to change what we don't like, but instead, we complain about it and just keep living with it.
Change is hard. And it is scary. And it can be distinctly uncomfortable. As strange as this may sound, being unhappy with how things are can be easier than trying to change them.
I am a lover of routine. Routine comforts me. Routine helps me to not make mistakes. But I recognize that loving my routine more than my quality of life is a hazard I have to be aware of to avoid.
One of the things that the internet has shown me more clearly than I saw before is that some people live to complain.
If you follow any news source, or group, or blog, you will notice other followers who always complain. There are many people whose comments are a balance of positive and negative, some whose comments are overwhelmingly positive, some are thought-provoking, some are funny.
But there are a persistent few that are always negative. And it makes me wonder about the people behind the comments.
If reading certain things or types of things makes you angry or uncomfortable, why would you keep reading them? Why not do something else with that time that provokes more positive emotions? If supporting a certain sports team, or watching a certain television program, or reading a certain author contributes to you having a bad day, why do you keep subjecting yourself to that? In other words, why make yourself a ham and cheese sandwich every day and then complain about eating it?
Changing your job, or where you live, or who you live with is big hard scary stuff. But if you are profoundly unhappy with your job, or where you live, or who you live with, shouldn't you at least be thinking about what can be changed to make it better?
Keeping in mind that the only thing you have control over is yourself, what can you do differently to make tomorrow a better day, or at least a different day than today if you did not like today? It could be that all you need to change is what you focus on, or it could be that you really need to make radical change to be happy.
But whatever your circumstance, even if you need big, scary, slow to happen change to get what you really want, you can remove the petty irritants that you choose and choose something else to fill that time with.
Life is too short to complain about the ham and cheese sandwich you made for yourself. Be mindful of the choices you make. When the choices you make leave you feeling unsatisfied, or filled with negativity, make different choices.
The big changes you may need to make will be easier if you don't deplete your energy with the little irritations you can easily remove.
I honestly believe the more practice you give yourself in making small decisions that make you happy, the better you get at making the big decisions that make you happy.
Take a chance on making a small change in the direction of happiness. It may start an avalanche of change in the right direction.
Yep . . . hence the resolution list to change some small things that will hopefully lead to the changing the big whopping 'ham and cheese sandwich' in my life. Thanks for the words of encouragement and, honestly, reinforcement of what I need to do . . . now that I am ready (I think :)).
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