My life is strange these days. I am no longer alone, I live with real people who have real lives and real schedules to which I surrender myself. I live with my daughter, her husband, and her son, my grandson. Suddenly, my life that used to be completely in my hands is spent knitting all the time, or doing jigsaw puzzles on my computer because there is no spare table at home, or staring out my bedroom window at sunrise and sunset smiling confusedly. My car and driver I seem to have lost to their schedules.
But my wonderful grandson has been setting up a web page for me and in the process of looking for it in the wrong place, I stumbled upon a blogspot or something called Life Buzz and ran into an article called 30 Things To Stop Doing to Yourself. I thought — what a wonderful piece! I think I can pick it up for my column because so many people need these values. Anyway, we are facing Christmas and the yearend. We need inspiration for New Year’s resolutions. Maybe we can pick a few ideas from these.
I will see if I can chunk them into, say, 10 in this column and more in the next one.
1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. I am so happy I stopped doing that. There are people around you who pull you down, push you around or always try to be boss. I dropped them and am much happier now.
2. Stop running from your problems. Running away won’t solve them. Face them and try to find a solution yourself. Don’t ask other people to help you. They are your problems and no one can solve them but you.
3. Stop lying to yourself. How many of you keep lying to yourselves about your husband’s behavior? He comes home after midnight every night. You tell yourself, “No, he’s very busy. He really still loves me.” How long did I do that myself? Wake up, ladies. If he comes home after midnight night after night, he probably has other women. What are you going to do about it? I know your choice. You will choose to continue lying to yourself.
4. Stop putting yourself on the back burner. I will think of myself later. Now I have to do this for my husband, my children, my father, my mother. Nobody is thinking of you now and no one ever will. You need to think of yourself too, you know, because you are primarily responsible for yourself. When they get old your children will leave. Your husband or wife will be doing his/her own thing. Who will think of you then?
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. I’ve written this a million times before. Know, love and be yourself. Strangely it’s one of the hardest things to do because of the way we were all brought up.
6. Stop holding on to the past. The past is over, done, finished. It will not repeat itself if you don’t want it to. Move on.
7. Stop being afraid of making mistakes. My cleaning lady told me she was afraid of cleaning a glass shelf over my dressing table where I hang accessories I made myself. Then don’t clean it, I told her, but don’t tell me you’re afraid because nobody should be afraid of doing anything. She stared at me and did not touch it for a while. But recently she cleaned it. I am proud of her.
8. Stop scolding yourself for old mistakes. Or in Pilipino, huwag kang magnisi. There is no sense in lamenting your old errors. Think about them and learn from them and go on with your life. Drop the Pinoy tradition of making sisi. It’s useless to keep telling another person I told you but you didn’t want to listen to me. What is important is everyone learns from mistakes.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness. Happiness is never paid for with money. Happiness comes with love, laughter, a zest for life. Work on those things and you will find happiness within you.
10. Stop looking to others for happiness. Have you ever had a friend sit on your sofa crying over the misbehavior of her mate? So you ask her — why are you still staying with that jerk? She says, because sometimes he makes me happy. At that point, if you are anything like me, you probably want to barf. There you are sitting on my sofa shedding big tears and you say he makes you happy? Will you get real please? But out of consideration for her or so you think, you keep quiet.
Think about these, please. I’m sure one or two refer to you. I know one or two slapped me hard.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.