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I had a nice long, thoughtful response written up for this...but Firefox crashed first. So I guess I just get to post the questions.
Does being cheerful inside make us stronger to bounce back when we see the sad and negative things in our world, such as those people who like to rain on our parade?
Is there any difference from always being cheerful to developing to being that state from one's life's experiences?
My mother always had a negative outlook on life. My sister is much the same way. My father was the eternal optimist and I got that. It’s not that I am happy or cheerful all the time. But I do tend to look at the bright side of life. my mother lost her husband my dad when he was 57. I used to listen to her sob frequently, and then she turned to drink. And she started to drink rather heavily. Those were dark years. It took her about 10 years to recover.
I lost my husband at 59. My doctor said to me that there was help out there should I need it, and I said to him well I will let you know. My mother drank after losing daddy, so I know what not to do.
You can’t compare the losses. My father died of a heart attack sudden and unexpected. That really does wreck your world. My husband had a brain tumor with a terminal diagnosis, he just managed to do it much quicker and with a little fuss by having a seizure and having his heart stop. My world was wrecked a little.
There was also a lot more help online. In those grasping first months where I was trying to find something to hold onto, I found David Kessler. He is the guy who cowrote books with Elizabeth Kubler Ross. He has come up with a sixth stage of grief. Honoring the dead. That was my lifeline. My husband was a bit of a hoarder, but he had some amazing collections, and I honored him by getting those things back out into the world. The T-shirts that were still good oh and there were bags and bags of them, I took them back to the Salvation Army and the Goodwill. His autograph collection I sold to a guy whose business is to sell this stuff. I donated his old truck and my old car. I discovered he had a comic book collection that I had no idea he had. I was married to him for almost 40 years. I sold that to a comic book place, and I was thrilled to find out that at Halloween they give out candy a Halloween toy and a free comic book. I was told that a lot of those that I gave were re-prints of originals and those were the ones that they were going to be giving out.
I miss my husband every day, I’m not looking for any sympathy. But I took the worst thing that ever happened and I found the good. My husband didn’t want to suffer or linger. And he didn’t — that’s a gift.
It’s something my mother could not do. It’s something that my sister who has had her own struggles in her life cannot do. It is beyond them. And I think it is because I have an optimistic outlook on life and that whatever I go through I know it’ll eventually will be OK.
I am not the only person who has lost the love of her life. I’m not the only person who’s lost the love of her life to a brain tumor. And it would not make him happy if I sat around in the dark and wept 18 hours a day. It certainly wouldn’t do anything for me either.
It's great to be positive and cheerful within your own little world if that's how you approach life. Good for you. But it's not right to be a Pollyanna to those who are struggling with real problems. Just because YOU make lemonade out of lemons or think life's a bowl of cherries and that tomorrow will be a better day and things will work out, doesn't help an elderly lady who's living on $1300 a month of SS and has a $500 car repair and whose roof just started leaking or someone whose son just died from an overdose or someone who just got a cancer diagnosis.
If there's anything "not normal" about being cheerful all the time, maybe it's that these people do not have the courage to really hear and understand those who are struggling. Maybe they feel better sticking their heads in the sand like ostriches and they can't bear facing reality?
For myself, Pollyanna'ish-ness doesn't come into the equation. I'm a realist with a positive/hopeful outlook. I am able to empathize with people facing serious challenges and offer words of comfort and support. At least I think I do. I try to. But I think I know what you mean. Some people are just obtuse when it comes to the suffering of others and never seem to say the right thing.
However, I have been accused by Hubs of being a Pollyanna because I don't want to stockpile food in every square inch of this LITTLE house. Maybe I should rethink that, although I do my part.
I always lived by the poem below by Charles Swindoll:
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what others think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company… a church… a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding
the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past… we cannot change the
fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.
This is an interesting thread. A couple of posters have said how they felt they had to mask what was going on at home with cheerfulness or at least not revealing the angst of it all.
I did the opposite. I was bullied at home, and bullied at school. I had health issues. At some point, I began acting out, probably due to stress and being at my wit's end. Instead of getting help like a lot of kids do nowadays, my reputation became one of being volatile and argumentative.
What I was trying to do was get my mother to behave properly. But she couldn't, because she wouldn't. She was a phony. She charmed everyone and made it seem like I was a "bad seed" (she even called me that more than once). She blamed me for everything and so did the bitter judgmental biddies at church. She was an extrovert and always seemed happy and cheerful - to those on the outside. We'd be having a knock down drag out argument inside the house, the phone would ring and my mother would answer brightly like nothing was wrong. She'd have this wonderful conversation with someone, and after hanging up would go right back to the arguing. It was crazymaking.
Be that as it may, otherwise I was a really energetic, active, cheerful child. My mother didn't like that. She wanted me to suffer as she had, as I have mentioned in other threads.
I think back to those who were cheerful all the time, and I envy them. Who knows what they were going through privately, but a few of them did seem to lead charmed lives. People adored them and envied them. Others had people wanting to be around them all the time.
It is a gift to be able to be cheerful all the time, or most of the time. What I've learned as I've gotten older is to set any angst or depression aside and focus on cheerfulness. It was easy after leaving my parents' house, then it got horrible. Now it's good again as I've gotten old.
Being cheerful is really an energy thing. If you're cheerful, energy is light and upbeat. If you're angry and/or depressed, energy is stagnant and dark. Being cheerful can be learned. Several months ago I started a thread about deciding to be happy (and therefore cheerful). It does work, even in the face of great adversity and challenges.
I don’t think you can judge Robin Williams outlook by his suicide. He had Lewy Body dementia a particularly aggressive and fast moving form. I think he didn’t want a future in which he was dependent on caregivers to do everything for him nor put his family through watching his decline. I think he was showing symptoms and depressed about what the future held.
I wasn't judging Robin Williams' outlook by his suicide, and I know about his diagnosis.
I am talking about his struggles throughout life. There was a lot after his death about how people would see his face when he wasn't "on" and he always seemed so sad.
My mother always had a negative outlook on life. My sister is much the same way. My father was the eternal optimist and I got that. It’s not that I am happy or cheerful all the time. But I do tend to look at the bright side of life. my mother lost her husband my dad when he was 57. I used to listen to her sob frequently, and then she turned to drink. And she started to drink rather heavily. Those were dark years. It took her about 10 years to recover.
I lost my husband at 59. My doctor said to me that there was help out there should I need it, and I said to him well I will let you know. My mother drank after losing daddy, so I know what not to do.
You can’t compare the losses. My father died of a heart attack sudden and unexpected. That really does wreck your world. My husband had a brain tumor with a terminal diagnosis, he just managed to do it much quicker and with a little fuss by having a seizure and having his heart stop. My world was wrecked a little.
There was also a lot more help online. In those grasping first months where I was trying to find something to hold onto, I found David Kessler. He is the guy who cowrote books with Elizabeth Kubler Ross. He has come up with a sixth stage of grief. Honoring the dead. That was my lifeline. My husband was a bit of a hoarder, but he had some amazing collections, and I honored him by getting those things back out into the world. The T-shirts that were still good oh and there were bags and bags of them, I took them back to the Salvation Army and the Goodwill. His autograph collection I sold to a guy whose business is to sell this stuff. I donated his old truck and my old car. I discovered he had a comic book collection that I had no idea he had. I was married to him for almost 40 years. I sold that to a comic book place, and I was thrilled to find out that at Halloween they give out candy a Halloween toy and a free comic book. I was told that a lot of those that I gave were re-prints of originals and those were the ones that they were going to be giving out.
I miss my husband every day, I’m not looking for any sympathy. But I took the worst thing that ever happened and I found the good. My husband didn’t want to suffer or linger. And he didn’t — that’s a gift.
It’s something my mother could not do. It’s something that my sister who has had her own struggles in her life cannot do. It is beyond them. And I think it is because I have an optimistic outlook on life and that whatever I go through I know it’ll eventually will be OK.
I am not the only person who has lost the love of her life. I’m not the only person who’s lost the love of her life to a brain tumor. And it would not make him happy if I sat around in the dark and wept 18 hours a day. It certainly wouldn’t do anything for me either.
This is how I feel about being smacked down not long after I found someone late in life and who is being snatched from me, albeit slowly, with only a few years together. I know I am not the only one who had plans that were smashed like a bug seemingly by some cosmic jokester (although my brain knows there is no one to blame, lol), but I hate hearing the pity in the voices of people who have said, "I can't believe you finally met someone after being alone so long and then this happened".
In a twisted way, it helps to know I'm not alone. My friend's brother recently died of ALS, which was diagnosed right after his wife retired and they bought a brand-new RV to travel the country. The RV was sold, never used. My sister's husband developed PPMS, a late-life MS that does not respond to any treatment. He can still move his left hand. That's about it. This crap happens to people all the time. Why should I have escaped it?
Your post is very inspirational, especially the part about finding your own strength and not following your mother's descent into alcohol use. You are a very courageous person, and your husband would be proud.
My housemate is now with a woman who moved to Alabama from Long Island to be with a childhood friend with whom she had an affair when much younger. They married 10 days later and were together for several years until he passed away 2 years ago. She never expected to find someone, but they are very happy. Seem made for each other. There's just no telling what might happen.
My housemate is now with a woman who moved to Alabama from Long Island to be with a childhood friend with whom she had an affair when much younger. They married 10 days later and were together for several years until he passed away 2 years ago. She never expected to find someone, but they are very happy. Seem made for each other. There's just no telling what might happen.
Yes, I was surprised to find myself in a relationship so late in life, since I had had only one difficult marriage and never had many dating opportunities. I always assumed I would go to my grave without knowing what it felt like to be loved, but I did get a bit of it after all, and so I try to focus on the four good years we had together before he got sick. It helps to keep those memories in the forefront of my mind.
My paternal grandmother was a naturally cheerful person. I did not find it abnormal at all. I thought she was wonderful and loved spending time with her because of it. To be clear, I don't mean she walked around grinning at people all day long or that she'd never known trouble and grief, but she had an internal contentment that many people seem to lack today.
You're reminding me of an in-law who was like that right up until she passed away aged 90. She was an amazing person, always smiling and laughing. She had that kind of personality and that kind of face. I was able to see her one last time before she passed away. After her divorce, she had men crawling all over her wanting a relationship. She would go to these senior (elderly!) dances and mixers, and men would just gravitate toward her. She had a lot of women friends, too. She never did remarry after her divorce from my mom's 1st cousin, but she lived with a couple of the guys. They both passed away. We had a conversation about my childhood and she told me she witnessed what my mother was doing and felt helpless to intervene. She told me that she'd had an extremely happy childhood in Wisconsin with 4 older brothers. Very happy family and she had a barrel of fun with those brothers. Really sad that can't be the experience of far more people.
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Solly says — Be nice!
