Is the Grass Really Greener? Bad Decisions Hurt Relationships[/caption]Dear Abby had several letters today responding to a woman who was who was asking Abby for permission to give up a 20-year marriage to a man the woman described as “wonderful” because she didn't “love” him and never had.
We all have potentially conflicting thoughts from time to time. “What if I do” precedes speculation about a new situation. “What if I had” follows a decision we couldn't make for whatever reason. Both ends of the thought spectrum can cause us pain and regret.
I’m not denying there are situations that ought to be changed. No one should have to live in danger or accept infidelity as a matter of routine. Poverty and lack of education are circumstances that can very often be changed by determination and hard work. There’s nothing wrong with changing bad reality.
But there are many situations where we allow ideas of a more exciting and more fulfilling life to create total disdain for the life we have.
The woman who wrote Abby had a husband who loved her, cherished her, and provided well for her and had been faithful for 20 years. But she had gotten to the point where she didn’t want to be married to him anymore because she didn’t “love” him. I wonder how many times over the 20 years she had ruminated over a Hollywood version of life as the movies describe it.
She rationalized that she never loved him. Do you think that might be just an excuse to justify her dissatisfaction with her marriage or her life?
It’s not just marriage
Thousands of times in this country, this day, people will make decisions based on negative thinking that spoils their current situation; decisions that can destroy their past and cast them into an uncertain future.
Negative thinking can ruin our perspective on just about any issue. We can take a perfectly good job and grow to hate it because we keep replaying thoughts of how someone mistreated us. We can take a wonderful child and turn him into a social outcast because he learns that we think he’s not as successful as his brother.
At the extreme, a friend committed suicide a number of years ago because his wife was not satisfied with the $500,000 house he provided. He went deeper into debt to provide a “better” house. Then, when the economy downturned and shut down his business, he couldn’t take it any more. I had occasion in those days to be around the wife and some of her friends and the most common conversation was about how nice it would be to live in a more affluent neighborhood in a bigger house. Her negative thinking and her husband’s desire to please her ultimately made life not worth living for him.
Do you have a situation where your own negative thinking makes you dissatisfied with yourself, your life style, your job, or your spouse?
Why don’t you consider taking that negative thinking under control and see how much your disposition improves? You can do that. It’s not hard to break the habit of negative thinking.
Here’s wishing you a happier 2013 without doing a thing except stopping the negative thinking that minimizes life for you.
www.findingpersonalpeace.com
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