Today I had to leave my computer at The Apple Store to get fixed, and it honestly felt like I lost a part of myself…
I know that’s super dramatic, but as someone who relies on her computer for her living, I’m probably a little more attached to it than the average individual.
Even still, I really let this one event impact my day, and in hindsight, I know how wrong this is it.
How many of us have done this, though? Let little mundane things like this upset us? I’m going to guess that it’s a pretty large portion of us.
Are we justified in feeling this way? Is letting ourselves feel badly about a moment really the worst thing in the world?
Here’s my take on it: I think letting yourself feel your emotions is healthy. I think if I would have acted like having my computer taken away wasn’t upsetting, I would have been lying to myself.
So then the question becomes, how can I let these little things bother me less?
Perspective.
That’s the simple answer.
Unfortunately, though, for a lot of us, myself included, our perspective tends to only come into play when something bad/upsetting happens.
This happened on my way home from The Apple Store. Something worse happened than my computer being taken away, and it made me feel ridiculous for ever letting that small thing bother me.
I think this is probably why people start cultivating a daily gratitude practice, where they write down what their grateful for everyday. This way, they’re constantly putting things into perspective, so they can be reminded of what truly matters in life.
On occasion, I’ve taken the time to create gratitude lists, but I’ve never been able to stick with it for very long.
It either starts to feel repetitive (i.e. I keep writing down the same things over and over again), or other things come up and I just forget to do it.
Neither one of these should be an excuse. Writing the same things down over and over again should be considered a good thing, because it means I’m constantly reminding myself what I’m grateful for. And the time thing… well, that’s just ridiculous, because I always have two minutes to write a gratitude list. That’s definitely not excuse.
There’s another aspect to it, though.
Doing something like writing a gratitude list always feels really cheesy to me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do a lot of cheesy things to motivate myself, but for me, there’s always this line. There’s a little voice in my head telling me that I don’t have to follow traditional “self help” practices because I’m stronger than that.
Man, even just writing that down sounds awful, and logically I know there’s nothing wrong with trying to better myself. And yet, I have a weird resistance to it.
Again, not sure why, but I’m at least taking the step to recognizing that I have resistance and weird preconceived ideas about the kind of person who relies on things like a gratitude list.
My point in all of this?
To be honest, it’s Day 15 of my Daily Blogging Challenge, and I didn’t really have an idea for what this post would be when I started writing it.
Now that it’s done, I think there a couple things to draw attention to:
1. Small things, like being without a laptop, aren’t a big deal when you put them into perspective.
2. Writing down what you’re grateful for on a daily basis can help you gain some perspective, so you can avoid the above feelings.
3. I have a strange resistance to things like a gratitude practice. I’m not sure why, but I want to get to the bottom of it.
And so, I think I’ll end there. I don’t think I’ll be uncovering the underlying reason for why I’m resistant to self-help tonight, but if you read yesterday’s post, I will let you know that this little tangent gives you a hint into my “big” idea that I’m planning for 2020.
And with that, it’s time for me to make a tea. Goodnight, to those of you who read these daily entries! 🙂
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