I smile a lot. It's kind of my natural state. Today I was about to write an exam and my instructor stopped, the exam mid-air between her hand and mine, and looked at me with a sort of perplexed, surprised look and said, "My, don't you look chipper!" All the while I was just trying to remember all the facts that I would soon need to spill over those pages. The funny thing was, my exam directly before that one was a crash-and-burn sort of experience. You know the ones. The ones where in the multiple choice words show up that you swear you've never seen or others that you recognize and all you can do is pound your brain to try and remember what the page looked like that it was written on. And then came the essay questions...
Suffice to say, I didn't necessarily have any reason to be particularly happy, and yet I was smiling without realizing it.
I wasn't on auto-drive, although I've been there many a time. Besides, the auto-drive face of a student is generally less smiley and more distant, that of confuzzlement or sleep deprivation or the "I'm ignoring you" face that the ear-phone wearers always have. Neither was it the fake-it-until-you-make-it smiles that people put on to hide how they are really doing. I've been there too, but today that was not the case.
I've been trying a little experiment.
Even though I am generally a pretty optimistic person, I have crash days... even the occasional crash week where it has been raining for the bajillionth day in a row and nothing seems to be going right and I have a cold or my friends are all busy or I haven't taken time to have some heart-to-heart talks with God (or any quiet time for that matter)... but on those days I've started thinking...
In order to be sad, there's a cycle that generally happens. Let's call it the ME ME ME cycle. Like a record that goes around and around in your head about all the things you have going wrong or what so-and-so did or what you have to do... and it can become a pity-fest pretty fast. And our friends, well friends are programmed to enable that very cycle. They'll say something to make you feel better but really they don't want to hear you complain so they will either agree that your situation sucks or they'll just switch the topic to how bad things are for THEM... then you just help each other's record keep going as you try to out complain the other person...
but that doesn't really help, and as a happy person that hasn't always been this way, that cycle can just leave you feeling kind of miserable... although getting off your chest what's bugging you can sometimes help.
But, to nip that in the bud, to help you feel better before you let all that bad stuff get to you, here's what I've found to be helpful.
Here's my Lindsay-guarantee. If you are feeling like the world is mean and no one can possibly get what you're going through, start listing out what you are thankful for. Say what? That sounds too simple! Naw, naw just hear me out. Be thankful and don't just stop after one or two or three things. Take a while. See if it doesn't lift your mood.
I have to bus to my university so I challenge myself to list out stuff until I get there. They don't have to be deep or clever. They can be simple. I pray when I make my list because I believe in God and I believe that the only reason we have Good things is because God chose to give them to us. It says in the Bible in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That doesn't sound half bad eh? And if he has good plans for us, it helps to notice them. There's always something good to be found, even if it's "thanks that I got to eat mac and cheese today" or "thanks that I don't live in a war-torn country" or "thanks that the Canucks won"... try it... I DARE you.
Because, when you start to think of all the ways that you are blessed, it really does help. It brakes that negative cycle and takes the pressure off. I love to pray it because that's some precious time talking to someone I know is listening, who appreciates me, knows EXACTLY what's going on in my life and loves me. Also, it helps to trust that God can help make things better, because there's a lot of junk out there that we can't change ourselves.
So, try it. Right now. Ya, you heard me. Stop your craziness and make your list. Listen to nice music or write it down. It's up to you. But it's only when you're thankful that you'll ever be able to be happy. I mean, you never hear happy people going around saying how much they hate their life and how terrible everything is. But you can find people going through the worst things ever but are positive and as happy as they can be.
Let me know how it goes :)
Stay tuned for part 2- serving and loving other people.
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