an exercise in frustration
Sep. 5th, 2010 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eI just got off the phone from my old girlfriend, Margaret, and felt almost like tearing my hair out. Often, talking to her is an exercise in extreme frustration. Don't get me wrong; I'll always love her. But Jeez! Trying to lift her point of view is a sysiphean task. No matter what is said or what happens she generally sees the bad side of it. It is rare for her to have an unqualified positive view of anything.
I like to consider myself the luckiest person in the world. This is not because I am luckier or better off than anyone else, and it isn't that bad things don't happen to me. I am lucky because I can see the positive side of the most unfortunate thing. I try to fill my viewpoint with the good aspects of the world. I'm fully conscious of the monstrous things around us all, and the dangers at large, and the traps laying in wait for the unwary, but I'm able to note these thing without letting them fill my view of the world. I try to help the good around me loom large so that it lifts my mind to maximum heights of happiness.
When Margaret concentrates on the gloom then it obscures her view of everything else. But I don't seem to be able to get this through to her.
When she moans about how little money she has, I point out that she gets far more than I do, and though I am below the poverty line in Australia I am filthy rich compared to 90% of the people in the world.
When she complains about the cost of maintaining her home, I remind her that I wish I owned a home like she does, but even my humble living space is paradise compared to most of the poor people on the planet.
When she is exasperated at the high cost of food, I point out that I manage fine on basically vegetables and a bit of bread and milk and eggs costing something like $30 per week, but that I eat like royalty compared to the 16 million people who die of starvation each year.
But all this just angers her. How can I get it through to her that she is actually an incredibly lucky person who makes herself miserable by looking at her world through a broken window?
I like to consider myself the luckiest person in the world. This is not because I am luckier or better off than anyone else, and it isn't that bad things don't happen to me. I am lucky because I can see the positive side of the most unfortunate thing. I try to fill my viewpoint with the good aspects of the world. I'm fully conscious of the monstrous things around us all, and the dangers at large, and the traps laying in wait for the unwary, but I'm able to note these thing without letting them fill my view of the world. I try to help the good around me loom large so that it lifts my mind to maximum heights of happiness.
When Margaret concentrates on the gloom then it obscures her view of everything else. But I don't seem to be able to get this through to her.
When she moans about how little money she has, I point out that she gets far more than I do, and though I am below the poverty line in Australia I am filthy rich compared to 90% of the people in the world.
When she complains about the cost of maintaining her home, I remind her that I wish I owned a home like she does, but even my humble living space is paradise compared to most of the poor people on the planet.
When she is exasperated at the high cost of food, I point out that I manage fine on basically vegetables and a bit of bread and milk and eggs costing something like $30 per week, but that I eat like royalty compared to the 16 million people who die of starvation each year.
But all this just angers her. How can I get it through to her that she is actually an incredibly lucky person who makes herself miserable by looking at her world through a broken window?
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-05 05:38 am (UTC)too many details to go into. in brief, i have fallen into her way of being, always depressed. some is actual mental depression, and some is situational. i am much closer to your financial situation, and have been feeling hopeless of late.
just, thank you for giving me a clearer perspective. i'll try to make it last.
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Date: 2010-09-05 06:32 am (UTC)One thing I like to do is consider my lifestyle contrasted with someone just a few lifetimes ago. Viewed in that light I live a life filled with inconceivable magic. I know and understand things that were denied even to kings and queens. I have libraries of books and music and artwork at my fingertips. The greatest encyclopedia in history -- Wikipedia -- is freely available to me any time I want. I suffer no nutritional deficiencies because of these magical little multivitamin tablets that I supplement a delicious diet of yummy veges with each day. I never want for safe drinking water. I can have a hot shower whenever I want. When it gets cold I have plenty of warm clothes I can don, and I live alone so when it gets hot I can shed all my clothes and, if need be, switch on a fan (though the place I live in doesn't go through terrible extremes of either).
This is not to say I never get depressed; occasionally I do, but when I can see all these cool things around me the depression never lasts for long. And even depression can be useful if you know how to leverage it. For me it provides a different approach for drawing and makes me even slower than I normally am, and very methodical. Some of my best artwork has been done on those very rare days. So even that has its upside. :)