I recently clicked on a story in my FB feed about happiness. Apparently, according to Dr. Steve Parsons, your synpses grow closer together over habitual neural pathways. Always think miserable thoughts? Over time you'll think them faster. Always think happy ones? Over time you'll think those faster instead.
Using a Buddhist-esque set of four choices can lead one down a path to bliss, apparently. Love or Fear? Acceptance or Regret? Drift or Desire? Optimism or Pessimism? (Clue: always choose the first option).
Meh! I feel myself in the negatives.
Love or Fear? Maybe not so much fear (oh that's a lie actually. I fear for my children. I want them to be well, and I want them to love me. I am scared they won't, especially because I moved out and made them have two homes: one with their father and one with me and BF and his kids. As for the new home? I fear that in the end I'll have worked my ass off in the new home like some stereotypical drudge and that everyone will hate me because I'll be the cranky-ass tired Witch of an Evil (Step) Mother).
So Q 1? Fail. (Miserable Witch)
Acceptance or Regret? Hmn. Well, not acceptance. I am always chafing for things to be other and better. I'd like for there not to be a mouse in the living room at 10pm now that for the first time in my life I have no cats. I'd like the pug puppy that was supposed to come home today, to actually be able to come home today (not on Dec 30 as now scheduled because it is on antibiotics and the vet won't release it to me until those are finished and the dog can be neutered) so that I have a happy-making distraction for myself when my kids are away over Christmas. I'd like for the car not to be at the mechanic having its shrill squeal diagnosed. I'd like every Issue to be resolvable (including that Neon Pink Electric Elephant in the room, the one with festooned in beer bottles).
Q 2? Fail (Non-Acceptance)
Drift or Desire?
I want the damn puppy! I don't care if it has a rash!
I want the moving boxes to be unpacked and the car to work and for the house to keep out vermin. I want Christmas to not exist. I want to live at the friends' house I visited yesterday with its homey Maine-y decor, functional rooms, open kitchen and trampoline and I want new undies and socks. I want a good, attentive, massage. Or a good, attentive, conversation that leads to me laughing a loooooong time. I want to laugh. I want not to have a thick mucusy cold. I want to be at work, not listening to some drilling noise outside my house while waiting to hear about the car.
Q 3? Fail (Wanting)
Optimism or Pessimism?
Deep breath
The mechanic will call and say the squeal is a plastic fork kicked up off a city roadway, and wedged such that it squeals when the front passenger wheel turns (easy fix).
The vet will say "OH, but you have adopted several animals over the years and all have been neutered and none have died of neglect. Here! Have a cute puppy!"
Grading will take me two seconds.
The mouse will have found a way out and is long gone and did not have friends or babies in the house.
The Pink Elephant will introduce itself to everyone and then shuffle off only to return on designated and predictable occasions.
Christmas will be somehow, miraculously, Godknows how because I can't seem to make it this way, better than expected and I will not want to hide until its over.
Q4 Pass (delusional)
Oh, and if you are still reading this far down, there is loving news! Big Smiles said that when I die he'd like to have me mummified and kept in a gold sarcophagus so that I don't decay, ever. He wants me to stay around, always!
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