Watch the Doughnut, Not the Hole

Watch the Doughnut, Not the Hole

When I was a little kid, there was a song that I played a lot. The chorus went: Watch the doughnut, not the hole. I found it a little confusing because we bought doughnut holes more often than doughnuts, but eventually I understood that it meant to look for the good.

There were lots of songs that offered the same message; The Sunny Side of the Street, Let a Smile be Your Umbrella, Stay on the Sunny Side, and on and on. I liked the songs, learned all the words, but somehow missed the message.

For most of us, feeling crappy is easy as falling off a log. We have a thousand thousand ways to get there, a thousand thousand excuses. One of my faves is, “That’s just the way I am.” The person I knew who would say that had a whole slew of those lines. She would talk about grim being her nature, unchangeable, immutable. She would pronounce that some people just weren’t meant to be happy. She looked for, and found, the worst in everyone, in every situation, and was so sad that she had so few friends.

My “nature” is what I believe my nature to be.

I used to believe that my nature was depressed and afraid. I wanted a nicer life, but I was so unhappy that I couldn’t imagine my life ever changing.

We are meant to be happy, and one of our tasks as a human is to find out how to do that.

Why would I choose positive? How do I look up? What makes me choose?

I have come to think of my nice life as my responsibility. I am the only one who can make my life nice, but I have also acquired habits that can make that challenging.

Sometimes I get stuck in yessing. You know what I mean, saying yes to everyone who asks me to do something so I end up feeling way over-extended with no end of commitments in sight.

Sometimes I get stuck in inertia, where I just can’t seem to do anything. I may find at the end of the day that I haven’t done anything that I feel good about. I feel like I fritter my time away.

Sometimes, I get stuck in a poor me place, or an angry place, like my poor friend. I face the world with a scowl or grimace, and wonder why no one ever smiles.

Sometimes, I get stuck in achieving, striving all the time, working to “get ahead” by putting in a lot of extra time, and losing touch with my friends, and even my family, until work is all I have.

There are lots of other places I can find myself stuck in. And, as we’ve discussed over and over, the only one who can unstick me is me.

Maybe I need to learn to say no. Just because I am able to doesn’t mean I am willing to. Maybe I am feeling depressed, and a chat with a counselor or doc might help me get free of it if my own efforts aren’t working. Maybe I need to dump the anger or self-pity, and again, if I can’t help myself, I need some help. Maybe I need to check my priorities, my deep-inside priorities, and decide to choose my loved ones over my accomplishments.

How have I changed from living a life of suck to feeling good?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07022014