Make Friends with the Weather

Before you groan let me just say that I love me some television. I watch dramas, reality television, sports, movies, and let’s not even get into my Food Network habit. But I know it’s bad for me.

A few months ago the price of my cable service went up, so I changed to a fairly basic package and sent back the DVR. No more dozens of hours of recorded television just waiting for me to click on. Now, if I wanted to see a show, I had to plan ahead for it and be in the living room. That quickly cut the hours I watched.

Then I read an article about how people in other countries are stunned by how Americans leave the television on constantly, as though it were filling a void of silence. Ooh, that hit home. Guilty as charged. I turned off the 24 hour news blab and the Pawn Star marathons. I began to feel as superior as a European.

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I admit I am not a naturally happy person. I am a grumbly woman who was raised by two grumbly parents, and I must work every day to bring happiness into my life.

Are some people naturally happy? That’s one of those nature versus nurture questions that has a different answer depending on what study you read. While it may look like there is a genetic source to some people’s positive attitudes, it may just be they were raised in an environment that taught them to incorporate and express joy.

To achieve a more natural state of happiness that involves less deliberate effort, I would focus on creating an environment that has a balance of needs. Once you know what your needs are and in what ratio, surround yourself with those things and being happy will seem much more effortless.

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A lot of what I do professionally is finding mistakes. Whether I’m editing an article or debugging website code, I’m basically looking for errors. The overriding theme is, “what’s wrong here, and get busy fixing it.”

And while I’m good at my job and proud of my atttention to detail, I realized I was taking it too far. Instead of finding mistakes only where I should be looking, my brain started finding mistakes everywhere. I was being critical of everything. I was starting to feel negative and unhappy.

Let’s admit it, there are mistakes wherever you look. A misspelled word on a sign, a bad parking job, a broken sprinkler, a chipped coffee cup. There are all kinds of imperfections in this imperfect world.

But that doesn’t mean we need to right all the wrongs. It doesn’t mean that every chipped coffee cup should require our attention. Even more, it doesn’t mean we should criticize others as though the error is their fault and their responsibility to fix.

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