I think I can safely say that we are all victim to that sneaky little wimp called Self Pity. He (yes, it's a 'he') creeps into your mind without warning and thereafter you behave like Deidre Barlow on a cold and rainy Monday morning in January.
What I can't stand is the point when self-pity becomes a person's default mode, because it becomes whiny and pathetic and your respect for them goes the same way as their respect for themselves. Cries of, "Everything is so hard!" and "Why does it always go wrong for me?" reverberate through the land and people slink away slyly from the scene in the manner of Mrs Overall on Acorn Antiques.
Self pity is an ever decreasing circle and once you get into the whirlwind, it's hard to get out. The Law of Attraction states that 'like attracts like', a statement I wholeheartedly agree with. I think evidence of this exists when you wake up and do something like stub your toe or drop your bowl of cereals, 'Oh for God's sake,' you think, 'why me?' That kind of 'why me?' can sometimes be attributed to the fact that you haven't slept too well or are stressed, and can be pardoned in certain cases. Anyway, your mood takes a further dip as you rub your red toe or try and mop up the cereals and milk with kitchen towels (and you know it takes almost a whole roll, even with those ones advertised by a cartoon elephant). The next thing you know, you miss the bus, or your car won't start and dark clouds surround your mood like something from Lord of the Rings. Then you notice that things start going wrong left right and centre; you break the photocopier, you fart in front of a customer, you lose your mobile phone or you accidentally cc your boss in on a joke with the C word in it; the list is endless and it keeps going until you go to bed.
Have you ever tried the other approach, albeit sometimes a difficult U-turn to make; when you stub your toe or spill your cereals, you instead smile and think 'Oh well, these things happen,' and sing a bright song or think about a film that makes you laugh. I always used to be annoyed by those people that walk down the street smiling, but now I realise they were probably going to have a nicer day than me, who had a face like the back of a busted sea boot because I missed my bus. Picking yourself up when things go wrong is something that I think you almost have to learn, because it can be so difficult to do. Try to imagine the bigger picture when things start going wrong, as the late, great, astrophysicist Carl Sagan said, 'We live on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam'. A sobering thought indeed, and one that makes you realise you are not the centre of the Universe.
When I feel crap I'll talk to a friend, listen to music, watch some TV that makes me laugh or sit and have a think about how I can try and turn the situation around. This means that I don't lose hope, I very rarely lose hope because I believe that to lose sight of hope can be a scary thing but something that people are faced with sometimes. Often, I'll go online and look for quotes that motivate me and pull me out of my self pity, and this is one of my favourites:
Everything will be ok in the end, and if it's not ok, it's not the end.
Have a good day.
What I can't stand is the point when self-pity becomes a person's default mode, because it becomes whiny and pathetic and your respect for them goes the same way as their respect for themselves. Cries of, "Everything is so hard!" and "Why does it always go wrong for me?" reverberate through the land and people slink away slyly from the scene in the manner of Mrs Overall on Acorn Antiques.
Self pity is an ever decreasing circle and once you get into the whirlwind, it's hard to get out. The Law of Attraction states that 'like attracts like', a statement I wholeheartedly agree with. I think evidence of this exists when you wake up and do something like stub your toe or drop your bowl of cereals, 'Oh for God's sake,' you think, 'why me?' That kind of 'why me?' can sometimes be attributed to the fact that you haven't slept too well or are stressed, and can be pardoned in certain cases. Anyway, your mood takes a further dip as you rub your red toe or try and mop up the cereals and milk with kitchen towels (and you know it takes almost a whole roll, even with those ones advertised by a cartoon elephant). The next thing you know, you miss the bus, or your car won't start and dark clouds surround your mood like something from Lord of the Rings. Then you notice that things start going wrong left right and centre; you break the photocopier, you fart in front of a customer, you lose your mobile phone or you accidentally cc your boss in on a joke with the C word in it; the list is endless and it keeps going until you go to bed.
Have you ever tried the other approach, albeit sometimes a difficult U-turn to make; when you stub your toe or spill your cereals, you instead smile and think 'Oh well, these things happen,' and sing a bright song or think about a film that makes you laugh. I always used to be annoyed by those people that walk down the street smiling, but now I realise they were probably going to have a nicer day than me, who had a face like the back of a busted sea boot because I missed my bus. Picking yourself up when things go wrong is something that I think you almost have to learn, because it can be so difficult to do. Try to imagine the bigger picture when things start going wrong, as the late, great, astrophysicist Carl Sagan said, 'We live on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam'. A sobering thought indeed, and one that makes you realise you are not the centre of the Universe.
When I feel crap I'll talk to a friend, listen to music, watch some TV that makes me laugh or sit and have a think about how I can try and turn the situation around. This means that I don't lose hope, I very rarely lose hope because I believe that to lose sight of hope can be a scary thing but something that people are faced with sometimes. Often, I'll go online and look for quotes that motivate me and pull me out of my self pity, and this is one of my favourites:
Everything will be ok in the end, and if it's not ok, it's not the end.
Have a good day.
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