Oh happy day....

Reader, I am a very positive person. Sometimes to ridiculous amounts. I try my hardest not to be a complainer, or to get too down in the dumps, because in my experience, positive attitudes attract positive results and negative attitudes attract...well, you get the picture. Sometimes, like anyone, I get a case of the blues, but it's very rare, and when it happens I work hard not to dwell on it. I have a cry, then fight my way back into a sunshiney disposition, even if I have to fake it till I discover I actually am happy again (believe it or not, this does work, it's like some kind of placebo!). Which is why I find I have very little sympathy for people who see life through grey tinted glasses. My brother has a tendency towards this, and it's been the cause of many an argument between us, with me  trying to shift him out of a bad mood, him insisting the world is out to get him, me talking about all the lovely things in his life, him talking them down till they sound a bit crap. It usually ends in me throwing a pillow at his head. I have also noticed this at work. We all complain about working in a call centre. It's only natural, it is after all, an incredibly boring job. However, there is a line between good natured 'ugh, this job stinks, I wish I could win the Euro Millions and retire to a small exotic island with a pile of books and a keg of pina colada' and 'This job stinks, I deserve better, I should be getting paid more, I cant take much more of this, how dare they make me try and sell wine to people who don't want it'. Get your head out of your arse. No one likes their job. Apart from maybe Bill Gates. Or Parkinson. And if you hate it that much? Change the job. Go and be a waiter, or a teacher, or a bus driver or an accountant.

Then you get people who just seem to like complaining. There were two women on the train from Chichester the other day who were whining about their high paid publishing jobs; 'Well they DID pay for the hotel, but it was only 4 star, the TV had Virgin rather than Sky and frankly the conference was a bore'. 'Did you get paid extra to go?' 'Oh yes, about 10 grand for 4 days, but it hardly seemed worth it for how bored I was'. I wanted to take them to some of the council flats in Tottenham and show them some of the amazing, cheerful people who live there on jobs that pay less than minimum wage, with three asthmatic kids, a buggered up lock on their door from people trying to break in and a bad case of damp in the walls. What's that old saying? Only boring people get bored. These are usually also the people who, when you say 'oh, how are you?' in a fleeting way, go 'I've been better' or 'Well, I had a crap weekend'. Day in, day out. Never 'Oh, I'm great, isn't it lovely and sunny?' or 'Fabulous! It's only a month till Christmas!'  or even 'Wonderful, it was cold today so I got to wear my favourite gloves'. No wonder they're bored, they don't bother looking for any joy in life!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're not allowed to be down in the dumps. I've been depressed before, I know how hard it is to get out of bed when everything seems bleak. What I do suggest though, is let yourself have a limited amount of time to bask in the misery. There's a difference between clinical depression that needs drugs and possibly therapy and someone just being a moody sod. Interestingly, the people I know with clinical depression are far less willing to force their blues on other people than the moody sods. My trick is that I allow myself one day, or even just a few hours, to indulge in being grumpy, I watch sad films, I eat a family sized bar of dairy milk and some potato waffles, I write incredibly self indulgent diary entries and I may even have a cry to my mum, and then when my 'allotted time' has passed, I force myself to try and be positive and look at the world in a new light. And it works. There have been studies done on the power of positive thinking and it's many benifits. Positive people are the ones that get the jobs, the friends, the great experiences, they even bloody live longer! And they're not positive because of these things, it's all because of the positivity that they have them.

So go out and smile Reader! Go listen to carollers at Covent Garden, eat a mince pie or a Coconut cupcake from Lola's, watch it's a wonderful life, have a duvet day. Be happy! It's a rather nice world out there after all. And you'll live longer. Or something.
Bye for now,
Ash
x
p.s. has anyone noticed I've really got into the christmas spirit?