Focus on the Good

As I write this, it’s cold.  I don’t like that.  I don’t know anyone who does.  All summer I hear from people who say they love cold weather, but when we actually get cold weather, they all disappear.  People may like cool weather, they may even like it when it gets down into the twenties or even the teens, but once it gets below zero nobody likes it.

Well, maybe not nobody.  There are some animals that like cold weather.  When I was a kid we had a big dog that just loved it when it got cold like this.  The colder the better, as far as he was concerned.  Dad would leave a shed open for him to sleep in at night, with some old blankets and such, but he wouldn’t go into it.  He wouldn’t even stay close to a building for a windbreak.  He’d sleep right out in the open, right on the snow.  When we’d come out to do chores, he’d be bouncing around, wanting us to play with him.  He couldn’t understand why we didn’t want to spend time with him enjoying that “beautiful weather”.

But most humans don’t like it much.  And as I said, I’m among those humans who don’t like it.  But, on the other hand, I choose to live here in north-central South Dakota.  I’ve lived in South Dakota my entire life, and every January that I can remember has been cold.  And climate change or not, I don’t think January is going to stop being cold in my lifetime.  So, if I don’t like it, there’s only one thing I can do.  Move.  But I don’t want to move.  So, I’m going to have to put up with the cold.

Actually, there is one other thing I can do.  I can complain.  And I used to do that a lot.  I’d complain about the cold weather.  I’d whine about it, probably to the point where people got tired of hearing it.  And you know what?  It didn’t change a thing.  It didn’t raise the temperature by as much as one degree.  All it did was make me feel bad, because I was focusing on what I did not like.

So, I’ve stopped complaining about the cold weather.  Oh, I might slip once in a while, but for the most part, I’ve stopped.  Now, it’s probably easier for me to do that than for some, because it’s not like I have to work out in it.  I have great sympathy for those who do.  But even so, complaining about it is not going to change it.  So there’s no point to doing it.  Instead of focusing on the weather, which only makes me unhappy, I try to focus on things that do make me happy.

And that’s true of a lot of things besides the weather.  Now, don’t take this the wrong way.  If there’s a bad situation, and there’s something we can do to make it better, we should.  And we need to focus on the bad situation to make it better.  But if there’s nothing we can do, then focusing on it is a waste of time and energy.  It doesn’t help.  It just makes us feel bad.  So, we might as well stop doing it.

What’s a situation in your life that you don’t like?  Can you do something to make it better?  If so, then do it.  If not, though, focus on something else.  The chances are it’ll make you happier.