Not Quite Betty Crocker

You know what I love about this whole blog thing?  That we have thought-provoking conversations with each other, not only in the comments of a blog but through each others’ (and our own) blogs.  Love it.  Y’all are so smart and fantastic.

{Also, apparently bolding certain sentences to make a point is en vogue in the blog world, so I am trying it.  Have not yet decided how much I hate it, and am trying to be open-minded on behalf of my readers who are overwhelmed by the sheer number of words.  Although at this point, if you’re overwhelmed by words, I suspect you moved along to more picture-heavy blogs long, long ago.}

One of my blogging buddies took on the bright side challenge and asked this question: “Do you always find the good in life? Or are you a person who constantly finds yourself "knocking on wood" after any self-promoting statement you make?”

I’m both, which seems contradictory, until you take the concept of time into account.

Looking at the bright side involves how you choose to perceive things that have already happened.  I stepped in cat poo, but I chose to be glad it didn’t get on my pants rather than dwell on the fact that my shoes were new and now covered in cat poo.

Superstition, on the other hand, is rooted in the belief that I haven’t done enough to deserve the good things in my life, so I’ll bow to the gods of luck and chance.  Two ways to look at this: of course not, nobody ever does enough to deserve the good; just by being you you deserve good things.  We can even delve into faith and religion at this point.

But let’s not.  Let’s just say, we are all both never and always worthy of the good things in our life (and the bad, as well).  If you look at it that way, then why look at worst-case scenarios and be superstitious?

I hedge my happiness because I’m trying to protect myself from disappointment.  The theory goes that if I don’t expect something, I can’t be disappointed, right?  Wrong.  Expecting to not expect (did you catch that?) is like trying not to breathe.  We’re built to take our experiences and personality and use them to project onto the future.

So while I’m trying to prevent disappointment by attempting to lower my expectations, I’m really just assuring that the highs will be lower and the lows will be… lower.  No, thank you.  I still do it, but I’m trying to knock the “lowering expectations” strategy off the table.

Looking at the bright side makes your lows less low and highs higher.  Now that’s more like it!  I am actively cultivating this one so that I don’t undo the benefits of this thing that comes naturally.

And knocking on wood doesn’t make a difference either way, so I’m not going to worry about it.

That leaves planning for the worst.  I am so, so, SO guilty of doing this constantly, a natural skill I turned into a full-time job for a while, thereby ensuring it happened even more often.  We say, “hope for the best and plan for the worst,” which is great unless you don’t know how to stop the planning and start the hoping.  See, planning is an active thing while hoping feels passive.  If your brain is built like mine, it needs to be doing something and there’s almost nothing more interesting than building scenarios of doom.  It’s like a really fcuked up puzzle that I just can’t put down.

But you know, hope can be active too.  Planning your hopes can be just as mind-consuming as planning your fears. So I’m trying to do this too.  Every time I think of a worst case scenario (and make appropriate plans) I try to think of a best case scenario to balance it out.  Boy, it’s hard, and I’m knocking on wood constantly, but it’s taught me something.

You have to be prepared for goodness too, because it’s way easier to mess up than the bad.

I met my husband and my best friend within a week of each other, having finally cleaned up the messiness of my past and inviting goodness into my life.  I was ready and it came to me so quickly it took my breath away.  But I was so prepared to fail that I could not have done a better job of making that happen.  Failure I could handle; success has been much more difficult.

Part of looking at the bright side is expecting that things will go well and having a plan for that, too. 

Try it.  Spend 10 minutes dreaming about the fantasticness your life would be if everything went as well as you fear it will fail.  I give you permission - and I’m knocking on wood for you.