There’s been a rash of people around here lately; everything they write is nasty. It’s mean, it’s hateful, it’s angry, it’s accusing, it’s bitter, it’s whatever. I can’t help but notice. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has.
I know someone like this who is part of my inner circle. A friend observed, the person has no gratitude. I hadn’t thought of this but I think it’s right. This is not to say the person has had it easy or has it easy now. So few of us do! But they definitely have many gifts. They have advantages, like a good brain, for example. Maybe it’s their good looks or their great education.
If the person focused and felt gratitude for even one of these things, it would change their view.
I don’t really care if someone wants to be miserable all the time, so long as I don’t have to be around them too much. The stuff wears you down after awhile. But I thought I’d post this for people who might have this problem and want a fix.
If you’d quit focusing on what you lack and show some gratitude for what you have, you’d probably feel a whole lot better.
I’m also posting for people like me, who are around someone like this and confused by it. If you can see the root, you may be able to show it to them and help them out.
I do believe this is the root. How can you be filled with gratitude and simultaneously miserable? It’s impossible.
Some people seem attached to their misery. They’ve built an entire persona around it. It’s the story (Sagittarius) they live. They’re almost like comedians who have a certain schtick. That’s fine. But I know there are others out there who are miserable and have no clue how to get out of their hole…
This is an idea. Try being thankful for the magic, love and beauty that surround every single one of us. Look at that drawing for example. What graceful talent. We get to see it. Well, most of us do. Some of us are blind.
What’s weird is you can be blind and grateful. You can also be drowning in gifts of all kinds and have no gratitude at all.
Where do you fit in all this?
It’s all about being grateful (thanks, I now know the spelling of that word). It’s my prayer. Not please please please grant me this, grant me that. Just sheer gratitude. My gratitude is not for any gifts I may or may not have, but for the beauty and deliciousness of life. The experience of living. Connection with nature brings many gifts. Yummy salad.
When the whole gratitude thing hit me, it hit me hard. I would burst into tears of joy at the darndest things. I know tears are supposed to be sad. Why are you crying, what’s wrong? How could I explain.
You’re welcome. 🙂
Some people do not think they deserve to be grateful so it is very hard to notice the good things you could be grateful for.
(I just went round with someone who had thinking mired in the mud just like this. I will maybe use your words to help them see a different angle. thx)
What if you swing wildly back and forth between gratitude AND misery? I am extremely grateful to have a roof over my head, enough to eat and not be living in a war zone. etc. To have definite but relatively mild autoimmune disease even if I deal with unrelenting daily pain as many do. I am grateful for every person who has been kind to me when I was in distress. But it seems to run alongside what makes me unhappy (lack of male companionship, little career luck despite much effort) rather than fully penetrate. One is cognitive, the other more visceral. I’m grateful. And I’m bitter. Flip and flop.
Elsa going to a banquet later today reminded me that for most of us here life is a banquet every single day.
This is kinda silly – but mabe not. I have ugly feet. My feet are really wide and my toes are stubby and weird lengths and I have such a high instep that I can’t get some styles of boots on at all. But, where this used to bother me like even a pedi isn’t going to make any difference, now I look down at ’em and say, thanks, feet, I’ve still got both of you and you still work just fine and you sure have carried me a long way. Yeah, it’s easy to fall back into ugly feet thinking but why do it when deep down you know your feet deserve Cinderella slippers.
And btw, a gratitude journal filled out at bedtime with 10 good things about your day really does work.
It’s also a form of self-generated companionship, the misery, when there’s no one else. Good morning heartache sit down and all that.
You can be happy to be alive and still feel daily grief over not being able to get what you need most. Biological agony often equals soul agony and it’s a beast to fight.
How weird that I was just thinking this same thing! I had just complimented something on Twitter and one of my followers commented, negatively. And I realized how frequently his person does this. sigh.
I met so many people on my recent vacation. I think about them and wish them well. I am fortunate to have had a wonderful trip. And I am thankful for my home, my bed, my food, my health, the morning that was so pretty. I’m not flooded or on fire. There is much to be thankful for.
So odd that this post comes now , it’s been a very hard summer at work, and I am drained by it , but I also think it has been a relief to complain about at work , and that I’ve becomed to addicted to it . Now it’s a problem , because the same thing that bugs me with costumers has become how I speak. I’m not miserable , I’m usually able to be very grateful for a lot of everyday freedoms and pleasures I know I am lucky to have , but the complaining has made me into an angry person. I am going to try to not complain for a week and see if it brings different energy .
I bet you’ll be floored at how much better you feel. 🙂
Life is always getting better. You manage things better with experience. Some things temporarily stink but it’ll end and that’s that.
I feel lucky in many ways but on paper there are things that could use improvement, lol. I don’t focus on the bad. Attitude matters. The other week I won 4 out of 5 on a lottery. The people giving me the money were like, omg with another number you’d have a few hundred thousand, that must hurt- and I was shocked. I said I got $516 on $1- that is amazing! I don’t have to win anything, but I did. I gamble a single ticket at a time on a few games a week. I was thrilled.
Woe is me is a sad way to live. L
I think this is something of the result of TV advertising. We’re told again and again that we’re not good enough and need this thing. People then express that because the ideal is not possible (thank you photoshop) but the expectation is still there. It feels almost as if it is a cultural shift.
It’s not hard to do. I just plug my ears and then go, “La, la, la ,la, la!” Just listen to the positive things I want to listen to.
heh heh Jupiter & Mercury are conjunct my 9th house Pluto right now.
maybe people do this because it avoids jealousy an envy from others. I notice, if a person (not all) brags happily they have a great life, even if it’s just meager, they get negativity thrown at them, like, what the hell is she/he happy about? but if you (as an example) become morose, bad mannered/bad tempered, always complaining about how life is just rotten, even if you do have a roof over your head, a great job, good family, or maybe just smaller than that, you become more of the person that people want to get the hell away from. lol It’s maybe subconscious too. People gravitate to those who exude happiness within, as an example. but in turn, that individual gets a lot of envious and jealous energy thrown at them. But hey, any energy is better than no energy. lol if one really thinks about it, it could be strategic (if this attitude is really not conscious and not natural). but people usually know.
It’s also why I always rooted for Aries and Leo types. People can call them ‘arrogant’ if they want, but at least they don’t suffer and moan! They’re too busy focusing on shining (Leo) and moving on (Aries) with their lives to be envious, or jealous. If being happy and confident is ‘arrogant’, then I’d pick ‘arrogant’ over being in a depressing vibration.
well it seems to come down to, you can’t please anyone but yourself.
❤️
I think it’s not always easy to feel gratitude for everything. But if you make an effort you can find beauty in the small things – and from there get better at working on the big things.
I feel very lucky for many things in my life, and very grateful too. In fact, I often feel that I don’t deserve this and have fear that I might no longer have it one day.
But I do know what you mean. I have a friend who doesn’t like the situation she’s in, but prefers to stay that way rather than do something about it. She has indeed made up a whole story blaming it all on her family, which is not quite the reality. She obstinately hangs on to this version and is completly unable to see it any other way.
My mother was a “never happy” person. This makes me sad, for her, but it was also difficult for the rest of the family. But that’s probably another subject. However, people who are always negative put a pall on others, and after a while you no longer have empathy for them. THAT is very sad.
There have been two major earthquakes in 24 hours, in Italy and Myanmar. We already know that Italian earthquake has provoked loss of life counting in hundreds and complete devastation of several villages, with homes collapsing everywhere. I know the region somewhat, just drove through it 2 months ago, and also have known some people from Rieti, so it feels nearer to me than some other tragedies.
But this also makes me very grateful of the fact I’m currently living in one of the places in The Earth with lowest seismic activity. We don’t have any vulcanos. We don’t get any tornados or hurricanes, either, and Norwegian Mountains tend to block the worst of Atlantic tempest. Flooding is pretty contained, our rivers ar smallish, extended wildfires are rare – so much so, that people from Government project recently contacted my Grandmother who lived through the biggest recorded wildfire in our history back in 1931 for her testimony. I don’t know if many people think about these hazards much, but for someone interested in geography, this seems like an unique blessing.
Good reminder, Elsa — “check your story!” I needed that. And @ Iathinah good idea about not complaining (or giving in to the muck), for a week to see how that changes things. Gonna give that a try, too. Mercury goes retrograde in a few days, so maybe my story will change for the better with better fact-checking and gratitude.
Deepak Chopra says that the thoughts we think create neuronal pathways. If we think negatively every time we are on a certain subject, the pattern solidifies.
This surely means we can reprogram our thinking by working at positive thoughts. After a while the disease of negativity turns into gratitude et kindness. I believe this can be done.
I’m working a lot on this subject this summer as my relationship is failing and we are both getting sick and tired of trying again and again, to end up in crisis in the end. Our needs are just too different.
But I find that the Saturn-Neptune square, which impacts both of us very personally seems to raise a lot of questions but leave a lot of confusion instead of providing answers. Perhaps the time for clear answers will appear further down the line?