There are some days when I’ve just about had it. Recently, when baby-sitting a friend’s two preschoolers for the day, I realized how much one can forget in the six short years since both of my girls have been out of diapers. On that day, the three-year-old got into the paints when I wasn’t looking. I discovered him sitting on top of the kitchen table, making interesting designs on his clothes, and took one look at him and decided he was too far gone to interfere with now. I just gave him some paper and figured at least this would keep him busy for a while. And it did. It kept him so busy he didn’t realize when he had to pee. My table got the worst of it. He peed all over a chair later that day, too. I spent the entire day walking behind the four kids and cleaning up after them.
Some of us have jobs that make us feel that way, too. If we work at a place where morale is lower than a double-jointed limbo dancer, everybody is grumpy. Nobody wants to be there. And nobody seems to notice anything good that we do. The problem, whether at our jobs or at home, is not necessarily that the work we do is miserable, or that the job is too hard. It’s that nobody appreciates our efforts. Attention only comes our way when there’s a problem.
Living that kind of life, with no positive feedback, can be like living a slow death. Even when we have chosen a life we desperately want—a career we feel proud of, a family we’re raising that we love, a business we’re starting—that inner sense of motivation, satisfaction or drive only takes you so far. We are social beings, and we need positive human interaction.
I think that’s what poisons so many marriages, and causes employers to lose the best people. These bad feelings, even if they don’t stem from huge issues, can start to add up as, brick by brick, we build up walls between us. Soon there doesn’t seem anything left to hold us together.
How can we stop this impending death? My grandfather, after every meal, would always smile and thank my grandmother. “Mother,” he would say, “that was wonderful,” whether it was or not. It seems quaint now, and maybe even a little sexist, but I think that meant something to her. He was acknowledging the effort and the love that she put into that meal. When we don’t acknowledge that love, too often it flickers out.
Much as we may know this kind of appreciation is vital, though, when we’re feeling unappreciated, it’s really hard to appreciate anybody else. We’re each waiting for the other person to thank us, before it even occurs to us to acknowledge them. It’s strange how we’re often the most critical with those we’re the closest to. We can be kind to strangers, but are we kind to those who really matter? When we’re not, we cause bitterness to escalate, even if it doesn’t stem from anything huge. Even so, bit by bit, we build up walls between us until there doesn’t seem anything left to hold us together.
I know many of us are tired. After that day with four kids, I certainly was. But think about those around you. Why not break through that wall today, before it becomes too high to climb over? Take my advice: whether you’re at home or at work, stop reading, smile at the person nearest you, and say thank you for something. You’ll be tearing down bricks, and that’s ever so much better than piling them up.
It's Wifey Wednesday, the time when we talk marriage, and you all write your own blog posts and then link them back here! I so love reading what you all write.
Today I'm going to turn Wifey Wednesday over to my wonderful friend Terry, whom I wish I knew in real life. She has written a beautiful post on why we let the little things in life get to us.
She was recounting a time a few weeks ago when she was driving to church and her husband was bugging her. And then she was convicted of the pettiness of the things that she was allowing to bother her.
It really is a beautiful post, and so well written. Read the whole thing here, but here's a taste:
As a young child and teenager, I never dreamed of being rich, or famous, a starlet, or beautiful. All I ever wanted was to experience a solid, peaceful family life. For me. For any children I was blessed to birth. I have that. I have no reason to whine or complain. Life can be hectic in our house. Siblings spat, toddlers tantrum, and preschoolers sneak in the cookie jar. Husbands forget to tell you that they will be late for dinner, and the laundry seems like a never ending challenge. But it’s all small stuff. My life is many things, but never boring. I can remember when I knew the difference between hard things and the small stuff. When I was so thankful to have a family that I took great pleasure in the things that now just seem to make my day longer and my work load heavier.
I think this is what happens when life is going pretty well for a good stretch of time. We become masters at sweating the small stuff. We magnify minutiae, making it big so we can entertain our human love of complaint and cries of woe is me. We humans must fight against chronic discontentment, and it's a never ending battle.
Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel discontented, grumpy, mad at the world? I certainly do, and I hate to admit it, but sometimes it's hormonal. There are days I feel like I am standing outside myself, watching what I'm doing, and I'm horrified, and I can't seem to stop. It seems worse since I turned 35. My doctor told me that it's a sign that menopause is coming, and if so, I'm really not looking forward to that!
But we can't blame it all on hormones. As bad as they are, we still have a choice. So here's the question: how do you recapture that gratitude you once had? How do you come back to the perspective you had about being grateful for a family?
When things are going well we do tend to find fault with things. When they are going badly, we notice the good stuff. I vividly remember the moment in my life when I felt most grateful. My son was in the NICU, and we knew he may not make it. But as I was walking into the hospital, I thought to myself, "I have a husband I love, a daughter I adore, a son I would die for, and a God who died for me. What else do I want? If I have nothing else in this life, at least I have this moment."
And I often take myself back in time to that moment, when I did feel such tremendous bliss, even at the same time as I felt such grief because I knew it wouldn't last. Perhaps it was because I knew it wouldn't last that I snatched it, and held it, and grasped it to my heart.
In the years since I do get grumpy, and I do sweat the small stuff. But I try to take myself back to that moment, and remember what it was like to have life crystallized so perfectly like that.
It is amazing how having someone you love so ill focuses the mind on what you appreciate.
Nevertheless, in the normal course of events, people aren't that ill. We're just living everyday life. And the challenge is to find that gratitude in everyday life.
When I spoke at a marriage conference last weekend, I really got the sense that gratitude is at the heart of many people's marriage problems. Or perhaps I should say, ingratitude. When we appreciate our mate, they thrive. When we nag and criticize, they retreat. It's true for both men and women. Of course, when you don't feel like he appreciates you, then it can feel especially difficult (I have strategies for this in my book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum). But you can't wait for him to change. You have to take the initiative. And as we do, we upset the balance in our marriage. Ironically, that can be the key to positive change!
So what can you do today to get a new perspective? To feel grateful for what you do have, and realize your blessings, instead of being grumpy at your hubby and kids? Share with me in the comments, and write a post on it and then come back here to enter it in the Linky! We'd love to hear what you have to say!
Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadian readers!
I know most of you aren't Canadian, but I'm sure you can join me in a general feeling of gratitude today.
I asked my kids today what they were thankful for that wasn't tangible. Like, if you were in prison, and had nothing, what would you still be grateful for?
I find so often when we're talking about gratitude, we focus on those tangible things, like our families, our health, our possessions. Those things are wonderful, and I am grateful for them, but if that's as far as our gratitude reaches, then where will we be if we start to lose some of those things?
So what am I thankful for?
I'm thankful that the Lord has made Himself real in my life. I'm thankful for music, that sings inside my head. I'm thankful for memories of love, both earthly and heavenly. I'm thankful for the promise of heaven. I'm thankful for a sense of peace and forgiveness that has stayed with me throughout my life. I'm thankful that I'm never alone.
I'm thankful for my education and great books, that fill my head with things to think about! I'm thankful for sunsets, chipmunks, baboons, and butterflies, even just the memory of them. I'm thankful for the vast array of colour in the world. I'm thankful for Scripture, and for the opportunity to learn God's word. I'm thankful for teachers who have given me a sense of God's purpose in my life.
I'm thankful for those I love, and for the love that we have already shared and always will.
What about you? Even if you're not Canadian, and you're not partaking of turkey today, what are you thankful for?
When my husband and I were in university my husband entered what was almost a depression. (I say almost because though most of his drives were gone--to sleep, to eat--he still had a sex drive! But that's another story).
He was in medical school, which is a brutal place for him to be. He was told day in and day out how stupid he was, how there was no way everyone in the class would pass, how they should know all this stuff by now, etc. etc. He had to memorize minutiae after minutiae, and he's more of an extraverted, hands on kind of person.
It was killing him.
But it was only temporary. And he couldn't see that. I could see that if he could just hang on for two more years, he'd be seeing actual patients and practising medicine, rather than just studying it. And that's a whole different ballgame.
Nevertheless, he was feeling very sorry for himself. Now I admit I wasn't the most sensitive sort. I get a little fed up when people mope. So I told him that everyday he had to think of five things to be thankful for, write them down, and pray over them. Even if they were little things, like seeing a sunrise, or having a child smile at him.
So he did. And it honestly helped. And in the fifteen years since, whenever he has felt depression coming on he has done exactly the same thing. He made it a point to always come up with five NEW things, so it was like a challenge. And everyday he was scouring everything that happened to find his five. So he was on the lookout for things to be grateful for, rather than for things to be upset about.
Over the years I have had to resort to this, too, because I have entered my fair share of down times. When we were having difficulty in our marriage in the first few years I had to do that: everyday, list five things I'm grateful for. It helped me focus on what I loved about him, rather than on what was bugging me. And it really did give me a different attitude.
And when my son was sick, before he passed away, everyday I would write down five things that were great about that day. I knew that our days with him were numbered, and I didn't want to forget anything. The night before his surgery, which only had a 25% chance of survival, I sat with him and made a whole list of the wonderful things about him I didn't want to forget. Here are a couple of them:
1. How he just loved his soother! 2. How he had such spunk, kicking the nurses everytime they came to poke him. He was a fighter! 3. How his little tongue would push out the medicine because he didn't like it, but he'd always calm down as soon as you held him. 4. How he sighed contentedly while I was holding him when he was feeding. 5. Singing to him while I was hugging him and he was sleeping.
And the list goes on to 99 things.
I remember crying while I was writing it, and I'm even tearing up now, because I do miss him. But it helped me to focus on the positive during a very difficult time.
That's what thankfulness is for. It makes us search out positive things, rather than focusing on the negative. Many of us have tendencies to dwell on all the injustices done to us, or all the things we have failed to do or accomplish. An attitude of thankfulness changes that.
I truly believe that if more people became thankful fewer would become depressed. So I practice thankfulness.
It's not Thanksgiving where I live. We had it last month. But to all my American friends, I wish you a wonderful day full of yummy turkey, peaceful relatives, and others who are more than willing to do the dishes!
And for all of us, wherever we may be, I wish that God may help us to focus on our blessings, so that the trials pale by comparison.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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