Greetings! Hope everyone's enjoying the summer season, hopefully getting away to somewhere bright and beautiful. Before Amy returns this week, I thought I'd share one last story for you, about my trip to somewhere bright and beautiful: Fiji. It doesn't deal directly with guys, but it will help you develop the attitude you need to get, and maintain, them. So let's get to it.
There are countless books that discuss the importance of a positive mindframe. For me, I particularly like Dr. Susan Jeffers' "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway", which shows how positive thinking can totally turn your fears into strengths, and make just about anything possible. As she says, "What positive thinking does is offer a power boost to help you handle whatever life gives you."
As we know, the world of relationships "gives" us lots of things–not all good–so it's nice to have a "power boost" from time to time. Maybe you need a "power boost" in how you approach guys. Or how you deal with rejection. Or just how to deal with the man you have! Whatever the case may be, there's no limit to the power of a positive mindframe.
In my girlfriends' and my case, positive thinking has really enforced and strengthened the bond we have. Dealing with bad breaks and obstacles has made our love truly bloom. I particulary remember a huge fight we had last year. On the face of it, it was ugly, disruptive, and saddening to both of us. A "glass-half-empty" person might see it only in shades of bad; after all, we did almost break up. But the "glass-half-full", or "even glass-COMPLETELY-full" person would see that, out of it, we were able to deal with some serious issues, and make a newfound commitment to each other that continues to this day. While pessimists might see the thorns around the rose, I see the flower that blooms into something beautiful. These thorns may be prickly, but once you look a little deeper, you find something beautiful; in our case, a love that blooked into an engagement.
Our most recent experience was The Babies, and Plane Rides, from Hell. While Fiji itself was full of fun, optimistic things–the beauty, the friendly people, the amazing weather–GETTING THERE was, well, not quite so "rosy".
It all started with the 3:30 am wake-up time. Guess that's the price for a cheap flight…waking up at an ungodly hour for a 6:20 am flight.
"But we're saving money," we reminded ourselves. As crummy as it was–and man, was it hard to wake up!–we've learned to see the silver lining in every cloud. It makes the dark clouds of life a lot brighter. And getting through hard times shows you have the commitment to each other to wade through thick and thin.
Of course, this commitment, and our overall sanity, was tested with the aforementioned Plane Rides from Hell. Notice it's Plane Rides, plural, because on both flights, to Fiji and back, we had to deal with the SAME EXACT TWO, count 'em, TWO hellacious babies from hell. Not only did we have to deal with these nightmare infants once, but we were moritified to see them ON OUR RESORT for the full six days and on our same flight back! Desperate for a few hours' sleep, we got maybe five minutes' worth, each way. All because the brats' parents were clueless. There are safe, legal drugs to knock babies out on long trips, but these parents obviously didn't care about their fellow passengers, because they did NOTHING about the infants' infernal screams. About the only people who got sleep were the incompetent fathers, who peacefully slept through the whole thing. Maybe these guys thought they were the babies. Ladies, do NOT marry these kinds of men, for the good of flight passengers in particular and humankind in general!
But as a wise man said, "The good news is, The bad news can be good news." Just like our big fight from last year led to our positive talk about issues we needed to address, dealing with these brats made us talk about kids–never an easy subject. I've always been a bit weary about having kids, while Jen has always been gung-ho for children. I never thought I'd want to have little Jamies and Jens to take on a plane, but seeing the bad parenting on the plane made me realize I could do much better. It made me realize that I could be a good father, and I have no doubt Jen could be a good mother. We talked about this on the island for those six days, and it made us love each other so much more. The upcoming marriage was really going to be a journey, a fun one, that both of us were in on together. Strangely, it took the frustration and anger of clueless parenting to make me see that having kids might not be so bad. You can imagine how great this made Jen feel!
On top of that, we realized just how precious was the time away from the hellraisers on the island, just ourselves and no one else. We had considered going with other people to the island, but having the sweet privacy on a gorgeous island, made the trip all the better. We were truly meant to have some time alone and find out more about each other.
So don't always look at the "bad" things as always bad. Maybe you broke up with a guy you absolutely slaved over. But what great things did that lead to? Often, a break-up or divorce makes a woman (or a man) realize what she was missing out on, and leads to her finding herself. I know so many women who have bloomed into beautiful people once they left the guys who might have been gorgeous and good in the sack, but were really holding them back. And ultimately, life is about discovering things, great things, not limiting yourself. Sometimes all you need to do is open your eyes and "smell the roses".
As Elebert Hubbard said, "Positive anything is better than negative nothing."