Today was one of those 'look how far I've come' moments.
I've been feeling a little tested for a day or two now; the guy at my credit card company who gave me a ten minute talk on the benefits of a direct debit to pay my bill - when I already had a direct debit in place; the woman who is either being deliberately obtuse in response to my messages or is being grubby and grabby; receiving a really disappointing email about someone I once held in such great respect.
All of these rate out a 3-4 on the annoyance scale and not too long ago, 3-4 was about 5-6 more than I could handle being annoyed.
This has to be one of the questions I have been asked most over the course of my work in Searching for Serenity, but it's a question I used to ask myself a lot as well.
I had been told that I was resilient. It wasn't something I ever really thought about, it was just something I did.
I pulled the results out of the bag on no sleep, kept going even when things got tough, didn't clue people in on just how bad things were behind the scenes.
I could leave the whole blog there, right? But nope.
Women in the UK now have the second shortest life expectancy in the whole of Europe at 82 years and 9 months, and it's expected that a full 19 years of that time will be spent in ill health.
Seems like forever and a day, right?
So let's bring it down to a unit that makes sense.
How was your day at work today?
Did you have a good day?
Do anything that made you particularly proud or that will be a highlight for you?
Spend most of it watching the clock to get home, only to collapse on the sofa in exhaustion?
Today was one of 30,000.
I have spent years, my entire life really, trying to do the right thing.
That should have quote marks round it. The 'right' thing.
Why?
Because I saw everyone else doing the right thing and being happy. Wearing the right clothes, going on holidays, earning money. I thought that if I did those things too I would be happy.
It's time to stop believing in fairy tales.
How often have you sat there, scrolling through your phone, waiting for something to entertain you or amuse you, or for someone to message you?
How often have you thought 'once this happens I'll be happy/less stressed/more balanced' or 'one that happens I'll be able to do this....'
