Determined to be Happy
Okay, I've been feeling increasingly bleak this fall. A lot of it is the effect of soaking in and soaking up lots of chronic irritation and hostility all around me. The faculty are constantly talking about the issues of toxic students and trying to steer policy on the assumption that students are usually out to get us. The students, while mostly nice, do have a loud and persistent subset of growing toxicity. At the hospital, the usual stress of budgets in a state agency are growing as staff aren't replaced, remaining staff are spread thin, some exceptionally violent patients have arrived, and restraints and assaults are way way up (my students have seen nore crises this semester than all previous semesters combined). And at home... things are actually mostly pretty good -- though I'm working too many hours to be home much. Wolf is up & down, Steve had knee surgery and now is sick, Jazz is increasingly distressed over his increasing sleep symptoms which will hopefully be addressed by a neurologist but not till January, Maritza is working on adopting her 9-year-old brother which is a stressful enough prospect without the added joy of DCF being dysfunctional as ever.
And now the Holidays are surrounding us, and I've gotten an early start in my growing annual Scrooge, as the whole season repeatedly demonstrates being more expense and effort than joy.
So, I am now declaring my frontal assault on all this negativity. I want to use Livejournal to implement the advice I've been trying to spread: Every day, there is at least one moment of something that makes you feel good. The problem is, we ignore that and let it get buried under everything else -- given five minutes of hostility and five minutes of happiness, we inevitably talk about the hostility so much more than the happiness. I want to start shifting this pattern, and invite others to join me.
Every day I will post at least one happy thing. Okay, I'm already days behind, so some postings will be retroactive, but that's okay -- I still have to find the item every day, and think about it enough to remember it when I have time to write about it.
And now the Holidays are surrounding us, and I've gotten an early start in my growing annual Scrooge, as the whole season repeatedly demonstrates being more expense and effort than joy.
So, I am now declaring my frontal assault on all this negativity. I want to use Livejournal to implement the advice I've been trying to spread: Every day, there is at least one moment of something that makes you feel good. The problem is, we ignore that and let it get buried under everything else -- given five minutes of hostility and five minutes of happiness, we inevitably talk about the hostility so much more than the happiness. I want to start shifting this pattern, and invite others to join me.
Every day I will post at least one happy thing. Okay, I'm already days behind, so some postings will be retroactive, but that's okay -- I still have to find the item every day, and think about it enough to remember it when I have time to write about it.