Posts Tagged ‘questions’
The secret to happiness
The simple steps to happiness:
- Feel.
- Simplify.
- Repeat.
The fine print:
Feel – We’re incredibly complex. No one is ever 100% happy or sad; or angry; or anything. How you feel right now is a mix of various emotions, in different amounts, that is constantly changing. This is the human condition. Be Human: dive in to these feelings and see them for what they are.
Simplify – What is causing each of these emotions? Where does the anger come from? The happiness? The fear? Allocate feelings to causes. Give them a weighting. Eliminate those that you no longer require or that, upon inspection, are not relevant. Focus on what IS relevant. Focus on what you want to be important.
Repeat – When you are able to simplify as quickly as you can feel; when you can focus on the feelings you have decided are important AS YOU HAVE THEM; then you will be content. Until then practise feeling and simplifying, feeling and simplifying. See? Your life is changing already!
The hidden (zeroth) step is: Exist – You are here. You are now. Without you none of this is possible. As far as you are concerned, nothing exists if you don’t either. Alternatively, a rock does not know it is a rock and therefore, to the rock, it does not exist.
Sometimes, a person you care deeply about will ask you a question.
It may be a simple question, it might even be a statement with an expected response; It doesn’t matter – it’s one of THOSE questions; the ones you have already talked about or that you don’t WANT to talk about. It’s a loaded gun with a hair-trigger pointing at a barrel of TNT.
And you would like to say, “Look; can’t we just move on from this? I understand that you are scared/worried/annoyed/embittered/angry/afraid/negative about this but I thought we resolve this last time and wouldn’t it be nicer if we could spend our time together enjoying ourselves and looking at the good things we have going here; especially since we only have a short amount of time together.”
But you’re running late/in a hurry/a little tired/not paying attention and you say something like;
- “Sure…” or
- “Uh huh…” or
- “Do we really need to do this now?” or
- “Whatever you want.” or SOMETHING…
And then it hits you. Both. The Emotional Tsunami smashes into you and sweeps the relationship over all the old rocks you carefully avoided/re-arranged on the way to where you were and BLAM! You’re having an argument. Possibly The Same Argument you have had before.
Wonderful.
So, how can you avoid this?
Every. Single. Time. You are asked a question; tell yourself this;
This is going to take about 30 minutes. Do I have 30 minutes to spend cleaning up whatever happens so that I can continue as if it hadn’t – because THIS IS GOING TO TAKE ABOUT 30 MINUTES TO CLEAN UP.
Then answer the question the person you care deeply about asked you. If you spend less than 30 minutes dealing with whatever happens after that. You are ahead. You have SAVED yourself time.
If you expect it to take 30 minutes you will change the tone of your voice; you will change the attitude you bring to the answer; you will craft your answer more elegantly, with more care and attention than if you approach it from the “I’m in a hurry” mentality.
It will not take 30 minutes when you spend the time, up front, making an effort to care about the two of you, rather than having to bring yourself to that point AFTER you have had a disaster. Both of you will feel better and you might, just might, have answered That Question for the last time.
Don’t count on it though :)
Image by aeshaw90.
While secretly reading the internet at work (I had reached my Stupidity limit and needed to take time out) I came across this article about How To Focus On What Truly Matters which is becoming more and more important to me these days. The clarity of the announcement moment has worn off slightly and while I still view the world differently, I realise that my actions have not changed all that much.
I am able to choose what is important to me right now and that is a good thing, but I haven’t put any thought into what my life will be like in 10 years.
In 10 years time, I’ll have a 9 year old! Maybe an 8 year old too!
The gravity of the situation is only now starting to sink in. The joy and excitement too.
It feels strange to be making decisions about another person’s life when I have only recently learned how to do it for myself though. So, for the next week, I will spend the first 30 minutes of each day thinking about what truly matters and then do something about it. I’ll post up the results and the end of the week and revise them monthly, to keep things current.
It seems like the least I can do for my kid(s).
Image by Chris Runoff (Flickr).
So the doctor did, what sounds like, the same test to confirm Emma is not just good with a red marker pen.
I understand that they don’t want millions of hysterical girls blocking up the waiting room in the next place, but it seemed a little expensive to pee in a cup! It’s just due process I guess. I’m sure there will be a bunch of that ahead of us.
Isn’t there like a flag or something we can set to skip the non-essential steps?
Now we have to discuss hospitals and doctors… Do I ask her about home birthing? Water babies? Do I buy a camera now? Am I expected to be In The Room – When It Happens?
Do I want to be in the room?
If I’m in there, am I expected to help?
Haven’t I done enough already?
