It sounds corny but it is something that really resonates for me.
A blogger I read has a whole site (and an upcoming book) called The Happiness Project. She writes in more detail about happiness wisdom from the past and present, and also gets input from people who are struggling or successful with happiness. She posts frequently, so much so that her posts are backed up in my blog reader, but I find wisdom in them every time.
After having a silly fight with my boyfriend this weekend (which we said we weren't going to do anymore), I found this list of phrases to use in an argument really helpful. I tend to stay angry and hold a grudge more than I'd like, so I'm going to try to be more mindful of these.
Please try to understand my point of view.
Wait, can I take that back?
You don’t have to solve this—it helps me just to talk to you.
This is important to me. Please listen.
I overreacted.
I see you’re in a tough position.
I can see my part in this.
I hadn’t thought of it that way before.
I could be wrong.
Let’s agree to disagree on that.
This isn’t just your problem, it’s our problem.
I’m feeling unappreciated.
We’re getting off the subject.
You’ve convinced me.
Let’s take a break for a few minutes.
Please keep talking to me.
I realize it's not your fault.
That came out all wrong.
I see how I contributed to the problem.
What are we really fighting about?
How can I make things better?
I’m sorry.
I love you.
I also like her idea of a one-sentence journal. I like to journal (now, primarily online), and hey, so many of us are bloggers, but sometimes it can be daunting to write out a whole blog post that is clever, funny, informative, and visually stimulating simultaneously. The one-sentence idea is that you keep a journal where you write just one sentence of a memory every day. I tend to get overwhelmed with starting projects and wanting them to be just so, so this works for my brain. Now that I think of it, it's kind of like a more organized Twitter! Maybe I'll start keeping one-sentence thoughts here as well. I think it'd be annoying to have a post a day with just one line on each, so I've got to think more about how I can make that happen.
And if you think one sentence can't make a difference, well just read what this commenter on the site had to say
My grandfather kept a calendar in his shed, which he occasionally wrote little comments on. None of the family knew. After he died, my grandmother was cleaning things out, and called my father in floods of happy tears - she'd just found an entry which simply said "Went fishing with [his son/my father] and [his grandson/my brother]. Great day". Posted by: MsLaurie
This makes me think of during the week after my dad died unexpectedly, when I was hacking his laptop trying to find if there was anything important in it, I found his Twitter page. I can't seem to find it now, but one of his posts from last year was something to the effect of:
Saw my little girl for the first time today. She's a princess, I knew it. I could tell by her hands.
We hadn't seen each other in 15 years before that. Yeah, it was all I could do not to bawl on that one.
I wasn't expecting to cry from reading this post, but I did. It was so beautiful.
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