Happiness

Why does it only take one negative comment to take us down?

/ travelpilgrim / 4 Comments

Literally just one, and it can ruin your entire day. Even if everything else has been good in your day and other positive things have been said to you that day, just one bad one and it takes it all down.

I’ve suffered from this for years, in both work and my personal life. I pride myself on being good at my job but even when I know I’m doing a good job at most things, just one bad thing and it makes me think I’m bad at my job and failing in some way

When it comes to work maybe it can be put down to imposter syndrome (where you never really believe you’re good or competent enough to be doing the job you are) so you accept the negativity more easily as you’re subconscious goes “see I was right”. But in our personal lives too? Do we really have that little self belief?

I was having a good day the other day, not the best, I’d spent most of it travelling so it wasn’t exactly a very exciting day, but nevertheless I was happy enough and good things had happened in the day. And then I got one message from a friend, which wasn’t even really negative, they just didn’t react in the way I expected them to and seemed a bit dismissive.

I may well even have just misunderstood the tone but it instantly affected my mood and self belief in such a surprisingly strong way. I dwelled on it, I focused on it and forgot everything good that had happened that day.

I was even conscious of it happening and so tried to focus on the positive things of the day instead but even whilst actively trying to change my mind set it was so difficult to pull myself out of the negative affect of just that one comment.

I watched a TED talk a little while ago on why negative things have so much more of a detrimental affect on us than the positive which is the only reason I was conscious of it. But still even with the knowledge that we have to work harder to get over negatives I didn’t do very well at it. I guess I need to practice more.

It may not have worked for me yet but it’s a great talk. You can see it here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7XFLTDQ4JMk

The only person anger screws over really is yourself.

/ travelpilgrim / Leave a comment

I had an extremely ex-brat moment the other morning and the only person who lost out as a result really was me.

(I know I’m travelling so not technically an ex-pat but there is really no better word to describe my behaviour that morning than ex-brat).

I am not a princess, I’m more than used to doing lots of things for myself but apparently I’ve forgotten that it’s pretty normal to do your own washing and not just hand it over to someone who brings it back, clean, folded and dry 4 hours later. So when I arrived at my hostel in Phuket I was actually annoyed to discover that when they said “laundry service” what they really meant was a washing machine that you had to use yourself.

And I didn’t even consider it as a viable option for a second. I went off in a strop to find somewhere else where I wouldn’t have to deal with the great hardship of doing my own laundry!

I mean it’s absurd. I spent an hour walking around (in which time I could have done one load of laundry) but nowhere would do it as I wasn’t staying at their hostels.

When I went back to my hostel they even agreed they would take the laundry out of the machine after the first load (since I had two and waiting was part of my objection) but by then I was so annoyed by the situation I said no and walked away.

I was actually annoyed, about doing something that I’ve done at least multiple times a week, every week, for years.

And the only person who lost out by my inability to just accept the, actually pretty normal and not at all difficult, situation was me. I was the one who ended up still having half of my clothes (and pretty much my only ones for hot weather) that needed washing.

It’s a really petty example, and I’m still appalled with myself for how much I objected to it, but having not felt annoyed or angry for a while it did remind me that actually that’s what those emotions usually do to us. We get trapped in them and lose sight of what course of action would allow us to cut our losses and still come out at least having achieved what we set out to.

Hopefully next time, when probably a more important situation, I’ll remember and deal with it better.

We’re the only ones who don’t listen

/ travelpilgrim / 2 Comments

Animals knew there would be a Tsunami in 2004. Well maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, they might not have known it would be a Tsunami but they knew something was coming and that they needed to get to higher ground.

We’re the only ones who didn’t.

I discovered recently that at the national parks in Sri lanka they didn’t find lots of dead animals after the Tsunami as you would have been thought. All the animals (even the elephants, and think about how slowly they walk) made it out the way. They had all gone and found higher ground and waited it out.

It’s so incredible that they all could have known to do that and with enough time for even the elephants to make it, but they did.

We think of ourselves as the smartest animals on earth but it seems we may be a little mistaken. We didn’t know and we never usually do when it comes to natural disasters.

If all other animals know we must have at some point have been able to tell that sort of thing too.

Clearly though we stopped listening. And we’ve probably now evolved so far from that we couldn’t listen properly again if we tried.

It’s such shame.

Think what else we may have been able to know if only we’d carried on caring enough to listen.

Making lasting friends in 10 min

/ travelpilgrim / Leave a comment

One of the favourite people I’ve met so far on my travels is someone I met for 10 minutes. In a bar. Whilst wasted. And I mean properly wasted.

But she is one of my favourite people from my travels so far and we still talk at least a couple of times each week.

It’s so unlike how we usually form friendships in normal life but I love it.

I’ve spent days travelling with some people who I know I’ll never speak to again, but someone who I randomly met in a bar for 10 minutes, sure!

Another couple of my favourite people from travelling are two people who I literally just went out and partied with one night. We were in places where it was too loud to talk almost the entire time so we barely spoke. But you just get a feeling from some people so quickly, almost like “yes you’re my type of person” and you know you would chose to hang out with them rather than just doing it through circumstance.

It has nothing to do with how long you talk to them or how well you know them, you just get it.

When was the last time you lay down and just listened to music?

/ travelpilgrim / Leave a comment

I’m not talking about listening to music while reading a book, tidying up around you, eating or dancing around your room like a maniac (my personal favourite), I mean literally just lying there and listening.

I’m pretty certain everyone does it as a teenager as some point, I certainly did. But I stopped.

I stopped so long ago that until last week I hadn’t just lay down and listened to music in, well, probably over a decade.

But I did last week, and it is such an incredibly enjoyable activity that I can’t believe I haven’t done it in over 10 years.

It was one of the most relaxing things I’ve done in ages (bear in mind I did 2 hours of meditation everyday for 4 weeks at yoga school and am still saying this). I think the reason it was so relaxing was in exactly the way it was the opposite to meditation. Far from getting me to clear my mind of thoughts, it actually just gave me time to think and let any thought come into my head and go with it. It was also so enjoyable as for the first time in ages I properly listened to the music that was playing. I actually focused on it rather than it being a background activity which it so frequently usually is for me.

I now can’t stop listening to music as an activity in itself. My kindle was abandoned for the whole of a 4 hour bus ride yesterday, just listening to music instead.

If you haven’t listened to music, and I do mean just listened in years give it a try, even if it’s for only 10 minutes.

You won’t regret it

It’s 5am and I’m awake, fully awake

/ travelpilgrim / Leave a comment

I don’t have to be up for hours but I can’t sleep and for one of the first times in my life, ever, I have decided to get up rather than just lay in bed getting annoyed. I’d already been doing that for an hour anyway.

So I’m now sat in the hostel common area which is pitch black and has two of the people who work here sleeping in it. The only thing I can actually see are about 10 mosquitoes circling me. And I’m in a malaria zone so that really isn’t great.

My dorm wasn’t much better on the mosquito front anyway though so I guess it doesn’t make that much difference.

I don’t really know why I’m awake, it’s certainly not stress induced insomnia. I haven’t felt that in a happily long time.

There are just so many thoughts going round my head right now.

I’ve spent the last week with two of the most interesting people I’ve met on my travels so far which I’m pretty certain has largely got something to do with it.

The longer I’ve been travelling the more I’ve found myself thinking in general about nothing and everything all at the same time. Not even necessarily about particularly profound things but definitely considering more what it is that does or doesn’t make me happy. Since I can affect that pretty easily now. If I don’t like something I can just stop doing it, if I’m not happy somewhere I can just move.

And I think that’s what I found so interesting about them, they were both in their own ways equally as interested in what makes us happy and had clearly at some point in their lives had the realisation where it, for whatever reason, properly hits you that this is actually it. This is all we get. This life. So if you’re not happy with something you’ve got to change it. And if you want to do something you’ve got to go do it.

One had even been going round the world filming a documentary on what it is that makes people happy (you’ll be able to check out their project soon on The Wonder Junkies).

Since I’ve been away I’ve actually found it’s the simplest things that make me happy and really surprisingly for me they’ve actually mostly been based in nature.

I say surprisingly as I’m not really someone who spends lots of time outdoors normally or goes on walks just for the sake of it. I’m usually far too busy for that shit (how ridiculous is that!).

But now I’m not and sitting looking at a view from the top of a mountain, watching a sunrise or just staring out and looking at the sea have been some of my most amazing moments whilst away.

Because the world is actually pretty cool if you look at it properly. Like really look, just sit there and get lost in what you’re looking at. It’s fucking amazing.