You know, we talk about happiness a lot. The pursuit of it. Where to find it. How to go about that. But some people just don’t want any part of it.
You know them, right? The folks who frown all the time. Who complain all the time. Who condemn all the time . . .
Those people who just seem to get off on being grumpy.
Quite often, that’s disguised a bit as well. When you’re talking to someone who is all smiles, although the smile doesn’t quite transfer to her eyes. And right out of the gate you start hearing all the woes in her life—that’s her focus. How so and so did her wrong.
And yep, sometimes life just dumps a load of coal at your door. Part of being on this planet. Although I do believe we create our realities, and attract both positive and negative, sometimes that sack can’t be traced to something specific. Maybe down the road you figure out the cause, but now and then, like the stork dropping a surprise baby, the coal at your doorstep came unannounced.
Gotta deal with that. And we do. But I swear, some folks like it. They like complaining and showing how their lives are oh-so-much more difficult than your own! “See how tough I have it,” they say. “You’re so lucky you don’t have to deal with x.”
Right you are! I am so lucky. Of course I had to deal with L, M, N, O, P, but in my time with others I tend to focus on what makes me laugh. So we can laugh more. Which makes me happy J L,M,N,O, and P will be there to deal with later anyhow.
Yet it doesn’t matter to some folks. They want to be unhappy. They work at it. LOL. And one thing I notice these days is that if someone is happy in their midst, it pisses them off.
“She has it so easy,” a friend said about another the other day. “She should have to walk in my shoes for a day. Then she wouldn’t be so smiley all the time.”
And I could only laugh. I happen to know that other friend’s mother was just diagnosed with terminal cancer. And, having been there, I know the depths of her grief. She and I have talked about it, cried about it. Talked about how I got through it (although I’m never sure you ever completely do).
She just chose not to shout it from the rooftops to anyone who would listen. She didn’t stuff her pain, she just decided with whom to share it and whom not to. And she decided not to lead with that pain when around others.
Most importantly, she chose to focus on gratitude and appreciation for the blessings in her life, as she trudged through the valley of death and all the emotions that come with that. And in that dark place, she found pieces of laughter and happiness and joy. She’s not mood making—she’s feeling it all.
And what a hoot that in her sadness, where she found some joy, it pissed off another friend that she was happy.
Isn’t that a kick? And doesn’t it just speak to the psychology of how we see the world?
Whenever I’m in the midst of such a scenario, I always think of Dale Carnegie’s 3 C’s: “Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.” Carnegie said that it’s the simple mind that does so, because it’s the easiest thing to do. I’ve been there, haven’t you? But it gets you nowhere because you’re placing the blame on other people.
And when I catch myself doing so, I come straight back to my side of the street. Then I clean that up. And smile again.
That my one friend found the need to do all three to the other, and I noticed it, speaks to that place in me that used to do so. So, I prayed for both of their wellbeing.
Then I went and laughed with my friend going through the horror. We’ll cry more later . . .
How do you deal with the grumpy among us?