“Be thankful for what you have. Your life, no matter how bad you think it is, is someone else’s fairy tale.”
? Wale Ayeni
I believe that the happiest of people experience today’s newsletter’s “five minutes a day.” What are they? They are the moments in everyone’s day when something or someone annoys, aggravates, frustrates, or irritates us in some way. It may be our partner, our boss, or our children. Perhaps it is a nagging jab, an oversight, a sarcastic or cutting remark at our expense, or a sassy comment from an early adolescent who watches too much TV. No matter. They are part of everyone’s life. To believe that the five minutes shouldn’t be there is to deny reality and human nature.
For those of you who are regular readers may recognize today’s topic as covering similar ground to last week’s “Blemish or Beauty Mark?” and so it is. Today’s column considers not a lifelong sense of dissatisfaction (as in Aylmer’s negative obsession with his wife’s beauty mark) but rather, how we allow a good day to be spoiled by a momentary, often trivial remark or event, to contaminate an otherwise satisfying or pleasant day.
The noted cognitive psychologist, Dr. Albert Ellis, makes a most thought-provoking declaration as he tells us, “We make ourselves unhappy by believing ideas that make no sense.” He goes so far as to quantify that concept into the ten most common irrational ideas that ensnare individuals. One of those self-destructive notions is “everyone must approve of everything I do all the time.” Naturally, reasonable people see this as impossible. And yet, on an emotional level, we react according to that crazy idea.
So back to the five irritating and toxic five minutes that we allow to pollute our day. Is it reasonable to expect that our days should be free of all minor irritations? Of course not. So what are we to do? Let’s go back to the snowman (snowmantherapy.com) and his philosophy: Change your thinking to change your life. We can’t avoid the natural annoyances that beset us daily, but we can deal with them differently. Instead of holding to the earlier expressed irrational idea from Dr. Ellis that everybody should approve of us and everything should go smoothly, we need to simply accept that we all bump into our personal “five minutes” inevitably.
And what should do we do then? Smile! Laugh perhaps! Recognize that this is part of all of our lives, and it’s Ok. Don’t let your five minutes destroy your 23+ hours of enjoyment and accomplishment.
As you ramble thru life, brother
Whatever be your goal.
Keep your eye upon the donut
And not upon the hole.
-Anonymous – Chicago’s Mayflower Donut Shop