Fat Cat's Corner

When I was 25 I was divorced, living in my parents home and had a job screen-printing t-shirts in a basement under a dance studio.  I was miserable and thought my life couldn’t suck more.  If you had met me then you would’ve known exactly how I felt about it.  Because I would have told you. Every.detail.  Whether you wanted to hear it or not.  I complained about everything.  All.the.time.  Not enough money, crappy job, no car, riding my bike to work in the rain, an ex- employer who didn’t pay his taxes and then was killed in an auto accident and left us with his tax debt.   I complained about stuff I had no control over and stuff I did.  If you asked me “How are you?”  boy you’d wish you hadn’t.

Then I noticed that people were avoiding me.  I mean really avoiding me. No eye contact, no hello how are you, nothing.  This hurt my feelings and I set out to find out why.   Who better to ask than my family?   One sister told me I was a B**ch.  Wha?!  Fine!   My other sister politely informed me that I wasn’t fun to be around.  And it dawned on me; I was a B**ch.  I complained all.the.time!  And I was miserable because of it.  So I  decided to do something about it.  I actually took my mother’s advice.  (GASP!)  If I didn’t have anything nice to say, I wouldn’t say anything at all. 

I barely spoke for 3 days.  People around me thought I was mad about something because I was so quiet.  After about a week I explained my silence.  I mean really when you ask me “How are you?”  do you really want to know or do you want to hear “Fine! How are you?”    It was a very big lesson for me. 

I can’t say that my life turned around and was all sunshine & unicorns but my outlook changed.  I started seeing the bright side of even rainy days.  When you work in a basement, you can only go up. 

To this day when someone says “Hi! How are you?”  my standard answer is “Swell! and you?”  First of all the response “Swell” always makes them smile and second they really don’t want to hear that I’m PMSing and I jammed my toe tripping over the cat this morning.  Why spread my crap day when I can at minimum, NOT spread my crap day?

So when I saw this article this morning on MSN (you can read it here) entitled “Do you complain too much?”  I had to check it out.  I haven’t read the book and I don’t embrace the whole bracelet thing (and ultimately it didn’t work for the author) but the article reminded me that I’m not the center of the universe.  (GASP! I know!)  And it reminded me to put on a smile and be nice even if I didn’t feel like it.  You just never know whose day you can turn around with just a smile!  It might just be your own.

Try it!  You might like it.  I know those around you will;-)