No situation has a "right" response, we are all individuals with emotions and identities that make us each unique. We can't say that everyone should respond to Situation A with Response B; each of us comes to the situation with different mentalities, backgrounds, experiences and on and on. How I celebrate good news or despair over bad news will not be the same way that you do so. So, then, what guidelines do we have to help us out? The answer is so simple that at first you probably won't believe or even see it. The more you think about it though, the more you really look at yourself and what you do, you begin to see that in the end it was the simplest way that got you to the joyful place you were searching for. First off, everything in life must be contextualized, how we understand the world is based on our understanding of relationships between people and/or things. One dilemma taking place now might be nothing more than a passing thought in 6 months when life has turned itself all around and upside down. Whether we are happy or sad we have to keep the long term in mind and place our current situation in that long term (the bigger picture) to see just how important it really is.
For example, we can take my day today. Waking up late this morning I received a phone call from my co-administrator asking if I was going to make the interview in 20 minutes. After the interview I had to take care of everything else that needed to be done today. I went to one of the other houses in our adult living program for special needs adults and worked on paperwork from an event the night before that brought me into the house well past dark. Then off to my second house for a few hours for paperwork before heading back to the main house to work on even more charting and paperwork. After getting to deliver a write-up to someone I was called back to the house from the night before to speak with the nurse and administrator. It had nothing to do with the night before, but instead with rumors being told to the Director of Care Services and Nursing Director about tension in the house between staff and administrators on top of rumors that staff were not happy with my performance.
Where do I even begin? It's one of those What The F*** moments. Most of the time I can handle change and emergencies, but quite often I have a hard time adjusting at first because my original "plan" that I depend on has been changed. Losing that reaction time though makes a big difference. I normally would have started rushing around the apartment to get ready, throwing things in my bag and yelling things at my partner in a voice that is never appropriate. My heart would have leaped out of my chest, racing at a million miles a second, and would have stayed that way for most of the rest of the day. But I didn't allow myself to overreact. I stopped myself right after the phone call and I looked at the clock and decided what I needed to do in what order right now to get there when I needed to be there. If I freaked out then it would just take even longer to get ready and get there and then I really would have something to stress about. And I didn't want to spend the rest of my day on an adrenaline overdrive because God knows I can barely handle myself at normal speed. After I got dressed, did my hair and got my coffee and lunch I was on my way before the interview. I was there only 4 minutes after 10, and the interview had just been pushed back to 1030. If I had freaked out and ruined my own day and my own happiness it would have all been for nothing. But I did the right thing and focused only on what I could do myself to get things the way I wanted. It felt good, I really never thought I would be able to do it. After all my hard work and trying it came to me in an instant once I looked at the bigger picture. What really is important today? What should we be thinking about for Tomorrow? We have one shot at today and the more time we waste trying to control things we can't control and despairing over things we cannot change the less time we have to actually live this life we are so upset has been disturbed.
When you get up in the morning ask yourself what is important today? What is important for me to do? What can I do or work on if I have time? What am I grateful for this morning? There is always something to be grateful for, no matter what. That is why I have the word "joy" tattooed on the inside of my right wrist. Whenever I use my right hand I get a glimpse of it, and it reminds me that if I am reading it at that moment in time - then there was at least 1 reason to be joyful. I am alive. I am breathing. I have a loving partner, family and dog. I love my job. I have a safe place to sleep that keeps me warm. I have plenty of food to eat, and mostly the foods I like. I have a truck to get me where I need to go. I have at least one person I can count on for anything and trust implicitly. So many of these things we take for granted and we forget how lucky we are to have all these luxuries. So what if you spill your coffee today or ruin your favorite shirt. Get some more coffee and change, go on with your day. You can't un-ruin the shirt, but maybe this will give you the opportunity to start wearing that other favorite shirt you have been wanting to revive again. The bigger picture is life, and today is but one minuscule portion. When something happens next time ask yourself how you would respond tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or in 10 years. Overreacting is easy, I've done it most of my life, but it makes life miserable and if we only have one shot we better make it freaking count. You are the cause of your own misery in life. Things affect you how you let them affect you. Your best friend passing away could incapacitate you for weeks and change your perception of trust and friendship or it could reinforce to you the importance of love and friendship and caring about someone. You can miss your friend, but do you think they would want you to stop living just because they could't be there to witness it? Grief is healthy and something that will always be there. We can destroy our own joy and happiness by letting things that we have no control over affect us or we can take control and be the leaders of our own destiny. By making the conscious decision to cherish the memory of your friend and to put a picture of him up on the mirror to remind you every day just how much someone can care about you or any other way to remember the positive influence this important person had on your life you allow yourself to come to terms with life, come to terms with things you can not change and come to terms with planning a healthy future with a healthy mindset.
Bad things happen every second of every day to every person on earth. In a way I wish I could make it all go away, but I also know that these hardships, dilemmas and heartaches help to shape the people we become. Tomorrow morning wake up and make the conscious decision to focus on the positive, seeing the light among the darkness and bringing it into focus. That is what joy is, accepting the good, the bad and everything we can't control and still knowing that our lives are filled with happiness if we only choose to look. No one else is going to look for us or make us look, it is up to each and every one of us whether we want to grasp life by the horns and enjoy the ride we will never get again.
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