I've spent far too much of my life unhappy for various reasons -- loss of loved ones, pain, bad relationships, depression, etc.... I've been working on that, though. My wake up call came many years ago when I chatted daily on IRC. That's Internet Relay Chat, for those of you who don't know. IRC was (and still is, to some extent) text-only chat - No GUI, no premade smileys. A plain smile was :) and the permutations were endless. My personal smiley was @>;^> That is a devillish smile on someone whose nose has been broken (for one too many mischievous remarks), winking, with horns holding up a halo with a bun on top of the head in the middle of the halo. I used ascii codes to color the various parts, too -- red for the halo/bun and the lips, black for the horns and nose, and blue for the eyes.
Anyway, back to my wake up call. I was chatting with a long-time friend on IRC and he told me that I was too negative, that conversations with me were depressing and made people feel bad at times. I logged off and cried for a while. Then I started reading some of the messages I had sent and realized he was right. Almost everything I said was negative. Since then I've tried to turn it around. That's not to say I'm always successful in my efforts to be more positive, but at least I try. If I find myself in Eeyore mode, I stop, take a breath, and look for something positive to focus on.
No comments:
Post a Comment