In a long life, if we’re lucky enough to live one, we will go through hard times. Days, weeks, months, hopefully not years, of challenges both big and small. Sometimes the slowly applied weight of small things can crush us in just the same way we are floored by tragedy. This is a fact of life. The Buddha upon leaving the sheltered bubble of his lavish palace, saw the despair of the world and declared that to live is to suffer. Because of the negativity bias that we all carry in our caveman brains, we tend to focus on these sufferings. Remembering that something caused us pain or anxiety or sadness, protects us from going down that path again. If we remember that we had to run from the tiger behind the bush, we won’t pass that bush again. If we remember that the red berries upset our stomach, we won’t eat those berries again. If we remember that a person hurt our hearts, we (hopefully) won’t give that person our heart again. While this protects us, it also makes us focus on the negative at the expense of the positive. We are also equipped with a fight or flight alarm system that is too sensitive and prone to disfunction. It would rather alert you to a potential threat that never materializes than be cautious and allow you to be eaten by the tiger behind the bush. All of this adds up to brains that forget to remember the joy.
Which doesn’t really make sense because you would think we would remember the safe path and the good tasting berries just as strongly as we remember the bad, but it just doesn’t work that way in everyone. In my last post I talked about what a stressful year it has been for my family. How the slowly applied weight of small things has been weighing on my shoulders. But, let’s not forget the joy that sneaks in unacknowledged and lifts just a little of that weight.
When we add a little gratitude to that joy, the weight is lightened even more. I’m not talking about toxic positivity. “Good vibes only” is an impossible and unhealthy goal. We thrive on the whole range of human emotion that moves us to tears or angers us to action. Trying to only look on the bright side is to deny that the dark side exists, which is toxic denial. We are all the light and the dark and should embrace and share both. When we share the darkness, someone else finds a little light there when they realize they aren’t alone. But, some gratitude, some amount of saying, “In spite of the bad, there was this glimmer of good,” can help us to remember the sweetness of those delicious berries.
In my last post I talked about the stress my family and I have been under for the past year. Of course the world has been under a global stress for at least the last three years, but, hasn’t there also been joy? Hasn’t there been something to be grateful for? (I’m not a religious person, so I’m never sure who I’m offering these thanks to. The universe, I suppose.) When I look back over the past year, I can be grateful that we had the resources to have the needed repairs on the house done. That we could afford a new couch. We could provide the kids with the mental and medical support that they needed. I have a warm home, food on the table, and the opportunity to stay home and be a full time mom to my kids. (Which was really my only dream in life. How many people get to live their dream?) All of the chaos of the year would have been made so much worse without the resources to deal with them.
And the year was full of moments of joy. We went out to eat for the first time in two years. We celebrated the kid’s birthdays at restaurants for the first time in two years. We went on our first vacation in three years. I was able to see my grandma and meet up with friends I hadn’t seen in years. I reconnected with other friends virtually. I saw My Chemical Romance in concert. We went to Stars on Ice and saw Nathan Chen skate in person. I saw Paula Poundstone live for my 50th birthday. I turned 50, as I said before, something denied to many.
Flowers bloomed, books were read, music was heard, new friendships were formed, new things were learned, once again the leaves turned colors and fell. And once again we find ourselves at the end of another year. Or is it the beginning of a new one? Either way, let’s not forget the joy.