I read a wonderful blog post by Purpose Fairy on the 15 things you should give up to be happy. It really encapsulates my philosophy of late. I encourage you to check it out. Listed below is a excerpts of the 15 things and my acknowledgements of my struggles and accomplishments of each.
1. Give up your need to always be right. This was something I learned early on, but for me it was a hard lesson. I think as a kid I had this need to assert myself and demonstrate how much I knew. I can remember my mom pointing out numerous times, it doesn't matter if your right, if you lose all your friends in the process. This is a life lesson that has served me well, especially as a reference librarian, and therefore a smartass who gets paid to find the right answer.
2. Give up your need for control. Wow. This is one that is a daily struggle with me. I do better with it at work. I recognize that there are several ways to approach problems and if I am overseeing someone the last thing I want to do is to micromanage. So why is it that I feel the need for control at home? Poor Chris. This is just one example of how Chris is so amazing. He has not left me even though I feel the need to control the way he does things around the house. Don't get me wrong, it has caused plenty of fights. Particularly the time he chose to use a leaf blower inside the house to get rid of the dust bunnies and animal hair that had accumulated on the floors (as a side note, the leaf blower simply blew the dust and hair onto the tops of picture frames, door jams, and furniture). We laugh about the incident now, and in my opinion it makes for a great story. So there was some good in giving up my control of the situation. After 13 years of living together I have improved on this, but there is still room for more improvement, as I am sure Chris will attest.
3. Give up on blame. I don't know that I've ever been one to really blame others. I attribute this, partly at least, to being the child of two people going through a bitter divorce. Blame was the name of the game, and I saw my parents acting much like my 4-7 year old friends with siblings, always pointing out the faults of the other and demonstrating how difficult their life was as a result. I don't doubt that my parents had reason to blame the other person, but it still didn't sit well with me.
4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Yeah, I admit, there's a little devil in me sometimes that likes to point out my shortcomings and stumbles. Luckily, I do have a stronger voice of confidence who quells that devil. But man, each time, for a split second, I have to think about my accomplishments, and wonder what they are. And, each time it gets easier and easier to come up the good in my life.
5. Give up your limiting beliefs I perhaps have a bit too much self-confidence, and I thank my parents for that. As I've gotten older I think I have been able to distill the perfect amount of confidence. I've never really thought about what I couldn't do, rather I've focused on what is needed to do what I want.
6. Give up complaining. Yeah, well, this one I definitely need to work on. I don't think of myself as someone who complains about comforts, such as food, weather, and so forth. But I do complain about injustices that I see, or people who do not meet my expectations. My complaints are less about my situation, and more about what I see as idiotic behavior on the part of others. Yes, I realize that illustrates a very limited and short-sighted view of others. This I recognize as a weakness I need to work on.
7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Man, oh man! Boy, is this one of my major faults. And here is yet another reason why Chris is so amazing. He can put up with all my criticisms! You would think that I, as someone who grew up in a very critical house (with THREE critical parents!), would recognize and abhor criticism. Yet, it is one of the ugliest parts of my personality, and one of the constant demoralizers in our arguments. I struggle most with this, but I am happy to continue to struggle and I look forward to the day I beat it.
Side note: Am I blaming my parents for my tendency to criticize? I don't think so; I think I am just trying to state that I should recognize it as a fault and avoid it because it was one of the things that bothered me about my relationships with them.
8. Give up your need to impress others. Yeah, I wouldn't say this was ever one of my priorities. Don't get me wrong, I am very social and love being around people, but I've never thought I needed to change my personality to fit in. Talk about confidence! Well, there might have been that time in 7th grade where I wore make up and felt it was necessary to sit with the caddy, rich girls. But by 8th grade I came to my senses and sat with peeps who just wanted to have fun.
9. Give up your resistance to change. It's funny, change in my personal life is not a problem at all. When Chris was living in another country for two years we both accepted the change and had no problems. Even we he came back we accepted the change without difficulties. But, dealing with change in my workplace is way more difficult. When management starts changing the rules and moving people and shifting responsibilities, I become wary and critical. I suppose it's because I fear a lack of control in the situation and I see injustices that I can't correct. This has lately (in the past 5 months) been in area of my life where I am trying the hardest to ride the wave and deal with the changes.
10. Give up labels. Boy, and how! I totally agree with this. I'm sick and tired of people trying to peg others and pin them into neat boxes based on the political or religious beliefs, kind of job, color of their skin, and so forth. The best thing we can do is to see one another as individuals and as fellow humans. What I fail to understand is why it is so important for someone to identify with, let's say, their Southern ancestry and in doing so wave a flag that is seen by many to represent slavery, torture, and injustice. Isn't it more important to show acts of kindness to our neighbors, regardless of their beliefs, race, and so forth?
11. Give up on your fears I agree. I don't think I have too many fears. I guess it's that self confidence coming through again. I mean, why worry about what's to come if you don't have to?
12. Give up your excuses. Again, I've never really dwelled on excuses, and I think it's because I watched my parents provide excuses for their unhappiness. It just didn't sit right with me that these adults could have so many causes for their unease and especially for their feelings of inadequacy. Here, I think most about the relationship between my real dad and his sister. Each of them felt the other had more than was right, and as a result neither could be happy until they were equal in all things. They made excuses for how their childish behavior was a result of the other's selfishness.
13. Give up the past This is something that I've had to deal with as I've gotten older. Memory is an important concept to me. Perhaps it stems from losing my dad (and all of his family) at a young age. I don't want to live in the past, I am much happier reveling in the present, but I also don't want to forget from where I came and the people who shaped me. Those memories keep me grounded and help keep my confidence in check. ;)
14. Give up attachment. Hell to the yeah! I am 100% down with this, and I love working on giving up my attachments to physical items, to things. I would much rather focus on my attachment to the people who live in a special place in my heart and to my attachment to my neighborhood and community and my place on this earth.
15. Give up living your life to others' expectations. This is the hardest for me. I am constantly made aware of my failure to live up to my parents' expectations and for that reason I have this awful internal struggle to live my life or the life they want for me. This is the one thing that truly tears me up inside. My parents (and here I'm talking about my mom and my adopted dad) lead a very different lifestyle than I, and in their minds I am causing nothing but hardship for the future. They base their lifestyle on what they can obtain, (and have worked hard to provide a comfortable life) whereas I choose to base my lifestyle on what I can attain on more of a philosophical ideal. I don't care for two sets of china, or silver tableware. A big house is not important to me. When my mom visited us recently she was constantly looking to see what we didn't have (what we had given away) that she failed to see what we do have (what we cherish). Yet, if I were to point any of this out to her, she would take offense to it, that I am knocking her values, and underappreciating the things she has given me/us. So, I keep two sets of dishes (one that we've only used once or twice), two sets of silverware (not silver, but rather a stainless set and a more casual set), and other items that I know are prized by her. I haven't shared with her the goal Chris and I look forward to: living simple and living tiny, minimizing our possessions so we can maximize our relationships and enhance our lives through experience. I may be underestimating her, but to tell the truth I would hate to shatter her expectations for me even more than they already are. I see this as both my problem and hers. My problem is that I don't lead the life I want because I try to please her (and in the process probably presume the worst of her) and her problem is letting go and recognizing what is happiness for me may not be happiness to her, but that's ok.
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