Making Life Work

"We must have the stubborness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world." - Jack Gilbert.

I love Martha Beck.  I love her because she is wise without taking herself seriously.  I love her because she has a child with a disability and is happy about it.  Her latest column in September's Oprah is on being stubbornly optimistic.  According to her, we are evolutionarily hard wired to be negative - it's a survival mechanism.  Is it more important to survival to smell the flowers or notice the rattlesnake?  The trouble is, we're not living in a jungle now so most of our constant negativity - far from making us safer - just makes us unhappy and stressed - which ends up shortening our lives.

Our negativity - which makes us constantly afraid - makes the people around us fearful.  Then everybody gets more than a little bit aggressive.  "Billions of people are doing this right now, fomenting little tornadoes of pain that swell with every reciprocal negative interaction," Martha says.
To counteract this, we will have to learn to be "stubbornly glad." 

But what about all the problems we have and that the world has?  How will those get solved if all we do is focus on the bright spots in life?  According to Martha, there's nothing to worry about.  We will be stronger, more confident, more creative and more energetic in solving problems if we're focusing on delight.  Research shows, she says, that painful, negative emotions only last about 90 seconds if we don't prolong them by negative thinking.  The next time we have a painful emotion, she recommends we throw a fit for 90 seconds, then do something to bring relief - ice cream, a nap, a visit with a friend, a bubble bath.  Then the rest of the time look for delight and focus on that!

It appears that the more we defy our inbuilt negativity, the happier AND the more effective our lives will be.  Plus our delight is just as catching to others as our fear!