"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner."
Sidonie Gabrielle Collete.
A friend of mine recommended me a book: "The Happiness Project". I haven't finished reading it yet but this is one of the quotes you can find in its the first pages. I underlined it straight away. I love quotes and reading a couple of them really helps me on reframing my perspective of certain situations. I remember a casting a did recently for a commercial and if there's anything worse than the casting itself, that thing is, the waiting room! Specially when you can't stop looking around and comparing yourself to other potential candidates. When you realize you are a mistake given the obvious fact that everyone around you is 15 years old. Well, maybe it's time to update my resume and stop saying that my acting age is somewhere between 18 and 25 years old! To fight my discouragement, I remember reading a couple of quotes, funny ones, jokes maybe. Yes, I googled "jokes" to distract my mind, to lift up my mood and to have a laugh while in the waiting room. I wouldn't do this if I was auditioning for a dramatic role, but since it was a commercial and I was gonna be asked to improvise and to make a fool of myself, reading jokes seemed a good option.
I can't say much about the book"The Happiness Project" because I only read a couple of pages, but I am really enjoying it so far. The writer, Gretchen Rubin, is very practical in her approach to the concept of happiness. Her book naturally falls in the Self Help Books Category but, my very initial judgment lets me believe that this is a very different book, very practical, simple and well researched.
Am I unhappy? What I know is that I complain a lot and I hate it. I am not unhappy but I could be happier. That's for sure! And it's not that I complain to my neighbor, to the mail man, to my fiends, to my family. It's an internal talk! Stupid things and thoughts. I write down things that I don't accomplish, I set up objectives that end up making me feel anxious. A friend of mine sent me an email the other day saying how proud she is of my work and of my ability to multitask, but her final thought was key to me. She ended up saying that she used to be like me but now she is focused on doing less and on accomplishing less. Maybe that's the secret: accomplishing less.
I am not a complainer by nature, I'm thoughtful by nature, not necessarily a complainer. But these last couple of months have been critical to me and I don't like this new version of myself. These thoughts aren't just thoughts, they are complaining thoughts. I don't know why! Maybe because it's Summer and London is the last place I want to be in August, especially after seeing pictures of friends on social media enjoying the lovely portuguese weather, the restaurants by the sea, the long dresses and the flip flops, their amazing tan. They probably look at me and wish they could be in London, living in here, being fluent in English. Evertime I meet them, they complain about the country, the economy, the politics, the television, the football. Exactly! Everyone complains! Wherever they are! It seems that if we don't do it, then we have nothing to talk about.
I don't want to be a complainer anymore. I don't want to be so emotional volatile and influenced by the weather, the city where I live, the city where I could live, my holidays, my career, the things I didn't accomplish written on my agenda, on my head. I need to put a full stop on my thoughts before my thoughts stop me from living an happy life! I wasn't like this before, I want to go back to who I was before this virus hit me.
I hope this book will help me fighting that. I don't want to look back one day and think: "life was so fine, why did I waste it on complaining and on negative and stupid thoughts!" Grrr! This is not the mental attitude I want for myself. Enough!
If you have books on Mental Coaching or other books that you read or know about, please share them with me.
Lots of Love:)
Lilly
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