Paying Attention to the Rainbows

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There is a great line in Pollyanna (the Disney movie – I won’t pretend to know it from any other source) where Pollyanna says “if you go looking for the bad in people and things, you will always find it.”

I sometimes have to remind myself of that.  That I, like Willy Wonka (think 70s movie not book or the Johnny Depp version), I have to look for those things that make me go ” so shines a bright light in a weary world”.

Because it is easy – way too fucking easy sometimes – to get caught up in the bullshit of a job you hate, the crap people do, and all of the other shit – that you get swept away in the crap instead of seeing those lifesavers that the universe throws you.

And because you are so focused on the negative, you don’t realize how much you are feeding that negative – how with each moment of attention you give it, you are nurturing the bullshit, allowing it to grow and thrive – and the good to shrink.

I periodically will get so fucking frustrated at the squeaky wheels because they squeak – and the attention goes there.  And I lose sight of the fact that I don’t need to squeak. I don’t need affirmation of who I am.  I know who I am.  I am who I am (my apologies to Popeye), and I just need to be me – to be Emmy.

But getting swept up in the bullshit – it’s easy to do.  I’m guilty of it at times.  Fuck – we all are.  We all focus on the crap and forget to look for those rainbows in the sky.  Because the war stories, they are easy to tell – people love them – they create the right reaction. The “oh, I’m sorry” responses or the other forms of sympathy.  But to what end – we still focus on the war and forget the peace.

Today, a friend of mine of Facebook commented on his soon-to-be-husband’s status update.  At the hashtag at the end intrigued me – #100DaysofHappiness.  Looking it up because I’m a curious person, I found this video – on this site that explained it all –

Don’t want to watch the whole thing – go to minute 9.

Finding this video – seeing who was giving the Ted talk – connecting it to someone I know and love who has been reading and studying some of this guy’s research on this and other areas – and what can I say? I felt like the universe was giving me a big kick in the ass.  “PAY ATTENTION” it was saying.  Because lately, I have been fixated on what I need – or at least that’s what I keep telling myself, but what I am doing is fixating on the crap that I could not have – and missing the good stuff that I did have.

I mean, I hate shopping – but I got to spend the afternoon with my girls on Saturday doing the thing we all hate – shopping for clothes.  And in the end, we landed for a late lunch at a burger joint that resulted in us all talking, and joking and generally making people look oddly at us because, well, we are who we are – opinionated, goofy, smart girls who none of us apologize for.  Fuck ’em.  I think DJ even said something to that effect.  Why should I not look at that and grin despite the fact the afternoon was spent doing something I hate??  The girls make it better.

Or today at work, sure it’s boring bullshit right now because we are in limbo as people figure their shit out – but under my guidance, we are pretty much done.  We have almost all of the countries ready to go.  20 countries left and we have 18 of them ready to go.  While everyone else freaks out – we are sitting back, making sure it’s right, and talking about how we can make these things more sustainable without our team.  We are so far ahead, we are talking about fixing the mistakes we made early on because the idiots that “transitioned their knowledge to us” were short sighted.  What  an amazing position to be in?!?

Or Indigo – Indigo is with my in-laws this week.  And I hate that because, well, they are my in-laws.  But she is going to be doing this great stuff because they live in this tiny community and have connections to get her into classes normally reserved for locals.  And she is off doing that – and making friends – and doing what she loves.  How can I not celebrate that?

And DJ – DJ is off to the woods this week – taking kids out into the wilderness, many for their first times, to show them how to survive a zombie attack.  At least, that’s the camp.  But in reality, she is going to show them how to stealth, how to use their knives responsibly, how to track animals, and how to be part of nature – not an invader of it.  And it feeds her.  While it may be annoying that I have to work weird hours this week, how can I not celebrate that?

G is off to Comicon – San Diego Comic Con that is.  An event he thought he would never do again after last year, but he is getting to do again.  He gets a week of being a geek.  He will be attending, this year, with someone who is more willing to go to the interviews and meet the people and soak in the experience – than the person he has had in the past.  How can I not be happy for him?

While I could get annoyed at our old dog Harry for barking up a storm, I cannot ignore the fact that our puppy Maggie is listening more and more – is not so food fixated that she ignores us all and just keeps annoying the fuck out of us until we separate her physically from us. Tonight for the second week in a row, when ordered to go lay down or go out of the room, she just collapses on the floor and falls asleep.  Nothing more – nothing less – she just accepts she is not to get food – and becomes part of the floor.  She’s maybe 12 months old, and we are hitting that point…….that’s pretty awesome actually.  I loved Bob like mad, but it takes labs almost 3 years to get to that point.  And my pit-a-roo is showing signs she is reaching that point now.  Hey, I’m not gonna argue.

And today, I rejoiced in the fact the farmer’s market was 3 blocks from work.  So I walked down there with the little cash I had on me, spent $5 on an amazingly good for you salad – and bought fresh from the farm peaches – two of them.  Oh lord was it all good.  The peaches made me smile because they were exactly as I had hoped but because they were the right ripeness so I needed my knife to cut them apart.  Then I wondered what would happen if someone came by my desk and saw me with my pocket knife cutting apart my peach.  That thought made me giggle a bit.  But I didn’t care – the fresh peaches were worth it.

And the conversation via text that ensued about the subject between SB and me – well, that was great too.  I giggled aloud by his responses because I could see it happening – see him part of it – and see him standing there with his smirk on his face telling me all I needed to know.  To know someone so well that it can happen that way – well, how can I not be happy?

See, that’s the thing. I could tell you about how annoying it gets to have a “friend” ignore everything I say just so she can unload onto me.  But that doesn’t matter.  That’s her issue – her loss – not mine.  I could complain about the fact I had a sugar hangover this morning when at work but I can’t do that without thinking about sharing a meal with some old friends last night – the meal that had the evil chocolate cake that sent me over the edge.   I could complain about forgetting my Advil in my bag but then I’d have to ignore that good conversation I had with the cohort when I asked to steal some of her’s she keeps stashed at her desk.  The conversation where she revealed that they determined I am the only good PM left in IT.

I could focus on all the crap, but to do so is to ignore the good that came up too.

My Tantra teacher liked to say “the energy flows where your attention goes”.  Maybe it’s restarting Tantra again – combined with the other stuff that is making me more conscious.  Or maybe it is the moments that are standing out in my mind the past few days that make me realized I need to, as my Dad would say, pull my head out of my ass and look to the light.  He has such a way with words.

All I know – is that I am ready for the light.  I guess I just need to focus on it more.  Because the dark will be there.  But if we focus on it, then we get focused on how to deal with the dark – and we forget we are negatively impacting the light.  Reminds me of this:

What can I say – sometimes the words find you – in many ways – and use a 2×4 to make you wake up a bit.

So I will be doing my best to focus on the positive – to look for the good things happening instead of fixating on the shit that’s making my life hell in the moment.  Because the good things are what really matter.  I truly believe that.  It’s just sometimes easier to complain about the clouds than praise the sun.

What do you think?

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