Lesson #3: Be loud and be proud!

Yesterday was a rotten day at work.  My boss made a fool out of me.  To top it off, he was ignorant to me in front of someone else who I really like and respect.  Rather than speak up and defend myself, I was so shocked that I shut down. I find that this is my typical reaction to ignorant comments and rude behavior.  It takes me completely off guard and I suddenly become mute.

My husband made a really good point last night.  We spend the majority of our evenings discussing this man and how he seems to enjoy treating people like dirt.  I lose sleep over his behavior and some mornings, it's the first thing that enters my mind upon waking.  I just can't for the life of me understand how a person can be so miserable and feel so comfortable with spreading this misery around to others.  Honest to God, he is the most negative human being I have ever met.  When we first met, I did my best to be overly kind, to compensate for his negativity.  I quickly discovered that this was the most draining road to take.  I resigned myself to accepting (although not absorbing) his negativity.  But some days, it still gets the better of me.  It's incredible how one person's unhappiness can quickly spread.  I have seen it at work in action.  It's quite an amazing thing to watch.

So from now on, I will expect this kind of behavior and react accordingly.  I will never let my guard down.  The next time I am treated poorly by this individual, I will react as I would react to anyone else treating my poorly.  I will call up the old scrappy me who was well able to deal with people like this.  If I need to, I will even pack up my things and leave.

Keeping silent has done me no favors.

Lesson for yesterday:  Be loud and be proud!

Lesson #2: Focus and Finish

Our house is typically busy and very, very loud.  However, while making dinner last night, I realized that there was no choas, no drama, no catastrophe grabbing my attention.  I took the opportunity to read a few pages from my book while stirring dinner. Wouldn't you know it...as my face was in my book, dinner burned. 

As parents, we get used to stealing short moments here and there for ourselves.  Unfortunately, if we choose these moments while we're busy doing something else, we usually end up having to redo what would have been perfect if we had simply paid more attention to ONE thing.  Related to this is the inability to start something and completely finish it.  I have half-finished things lying all around the house, waiting for me to sit down and focus until it's completed.  Of course, when they eventually get finished, it's a feeling that can't be beat!

So that's a good lessons - one thing at a time.  Start something, focus on it, and then finish it.  (Eek - easier said than done but I'll try!)

Deirdre

Lesson #1: It's all on me

So I've always found blogs to be a bit self-indulgent. Trust me, my life isn't interesting enough for the entire world to want to peek in.  But...

As I was thinking about my adult piano students, I realized how important daily learning is for adults as well as children. But we don't all have the time to learn another language, instrument, etc. However, I truly believe that if we open our eyes to life, we learn something new every day. One of my favorite lyrics in Strawberry Fields Forever: "Living is easy with your eyes closed - misunderstanding all you see."

So this is what I'm going to do - I'm going to open my eyes and understand what I see. Every day, I'm going to open my eyes and be conscious to what life is trying to teach me. Then I'm going to post it here. If other people read it, great. If they don't, that's fine too.  I'm going to try to make it general enough so that my readers can apply my lessons to their lives

Please feel free to leave comments but be nice please. :)

So here we go...


Lesson #1:  It's all on me

I have been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now. When we are around miserable people, we inevitably become miserable.

I work in a very dark building with no natural sunlight. The individual that I find myself working closest with is absolutely miserable with life. I have tried being overly cheery, quiet, crabby, you name it.  But nothing changes with him.  You can imagine how draining it is working without light surrounded by negativity all day while trying to change an "unchangeable" person.

It doesn't have to be this way. It's on me to make a change in or around me - whether that involves separating myself from that person or getting out of the situation that forces us together - it's on me. NOTHING will change unless I do.

I have been dealing with this for a year now. I am NOT proud to admit that I have embraced being a victim in this situation for a full year now. But not anymore...it's all on me.

Deirdre