Glass Half Full Girl

I like to think of myself as a glass half full kind of girl.  For me life is just so much more enjoyable than seeing the glass half empty.  My life is not perfect (not sure such a thing exists) but considering what I read in the newspaper, hear on the news at night …. the challenges and hardships that other people face on a daily basis,  I am doing fine… actually I am doing more than fine. I am doing great.  My kids are healthy, I have a house that keeps my loved ones warm on these freezing cold days, no one goes hungry in our family and I have a husband who keeps me sane when I feel like everyone else around me is anything but! 

There will always be people in your life, maybe not in your circle of friends or in your family, but I am pretty sure that there will be people in your life that you will have to interact with on somewhat of a regular basis …whether at work, in your neighborhood,  someone in your child’s school perhaps or possibly a parent on your kid’s soccer team who either intentionally or unintentionally (depending on the person) possess the ability to suck the life out of those around them.  I was trying to think of a nice way to phrase that, but can’t think of another way to say it and convey the same message.

I know I am not the only person who feels this way. Within the last week I have seen the following post on several of my Facebook friends’ walls:   There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good. So, love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don’t. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living.

Despite doing a search online this morning I was not able to identify the person who came up with this common-sense, make-you-stop-and-think quote. I love it and it echos what I was recently telling my spouse after a committee meeting I attended.  I think what strikes me as the most valuable piece of advice is “surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good”.   Never underestimate the value you derive from spending time with people who make you feel good about yourself. I realize that it is not always possible to get together with the people who make you feel good about yourself.  Work schedules, family obligations and life in general have a way of dictating the use of our time, a lot of the time.  Being aware of this impediment, someone once suggested to me that I should keep what she called a feel good file.  The file (or shoebox or spot in your dresser drawer) contains letters, cards, emails that were sent to you from friends, family, associates that compliment you or congratulate you or simply acknowledge some achievement (big or small) in your life.   I have to admit, I have been doing this for years.  Part of it is because I am a sentimental pack rat.  I cannot bear to part with notes I have received from loved ones over the years.  I save the kind of notes that just by reading the words on the paper, lift my spirit.  They build me back up from within, when I feel like life’s encounters have knocked me down.  One of my dear friends, sent me a card years ago.  It was a thank you card and while I forget what she was thanking me for, I will never forget the words she chose or how they made me feel.  She is actually a little bit older than me which is another reason I found her words so touching.  She said “I want to be like you when I grow up.”  It was one the most thoughtful, sweetest things a friend has said to me.  This friend is someone whose opinion on my life, personal choices, career choices, parenting, you name it, I have sought out what she thinks countless times over since we met more than two decades ago and knowing that she held me in the same regard meant the world to me.

The other line of that quote that hits home for me is “pray for those who don’t”.  This makes me smile, because it reminds me of my husband.  Whenever I am venting to him – as I am sure wives all over the world do to their husbands on the phone, over a glass of wine or while laying next to one another in bed – he will listen and nod and then say “say a prayer for them”.  Not usually the response I was hoping he would have for me, and more times than not, it will prompt me to automatically reply “I will pray that they stop driving me crazy!”  Our conversation over the catalyst of my craziness typically ends there, but whether or not I like it, that person will find their way back into my thoughts. I find myself offering up a silent prayer for whatever might be heavy on their mind or heart, or both that day.  It is next to impossible to know what someone else is going through at any point in time, so the glass half full girl in me decides it is easier to forgive the transgression and move on than to dwell on it.  Because when you really think about it, “life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living.”