Attitude Adjustment

I really hate that there are a few days out of the month when I can be mistaken for a tantruming two year old.  Really, I should just remove myself from the world, retreat to my cave and have a snack and a long nap.  Because food and sleep make everything better and help put things into perspective.

Who the heck cares if people are moronic and don’t want to buy my house?  The economy SUCKS.  At least I HAVE a house.  I have a job.  I can afford my bills.  I’m healthy.  I have two great dogs and a husband who loves me even when I turn into an OCD psycho crazy person.  I have an agent who’s going to help me get to my goal of writing for a living faster than I’d get there on my own.  I have a lot to be thankful for and no reason to melt down over lack of a second bathroom.  And if we don’t sell our house this year, we’ll just be in that much better a financial position to try again next year.

I just need to get rid of more crap that’s cluttering up my house and my life and repurpose some of the rooms we aren’t fully utilizing (once the big stuff like the piano, gym, and my desk are gone) and go ahead and do some of the projects that we’d planned but never got around to and didn’t want to do since we were leaving.  Like framing out the bathroom mirror (already have the trim).  And my embossed wallpaper backsplash project (approximately $50).  And replacing the closet doors.  Lots of things that got put off when hubs broke his leg.

It’s really awful to get trapped in that Keeping Up With the Joneses kind of attitude.  To focus on what you want and what you don’t have such that you’re no longer happy or satisfied with the blessings you do have.  It’s a really poisonous state of mind, totally counter to the Zen most of us really need.  It’s detrimental to the creative process.  And it’s SO SO EASY to fall into it in American society because everywhere we’re bombarded with messages that what we have isn’t good enough and it’s time to upgrade to the latest, greatest, better thing because the perfectly serviceable thing we have now IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH (or has been designed to break right after the warranty expires).

So I’m back to being conscious of this stuff.  To purposefully ignoring those messages and finding things to be thankful for in my daily life.  Because I need to rid my life of the crazy.  Again.

Oh!  And Blindsight finally kicked in as FREE at Amazon, so if you’ve been waiting, it’s now there.  And if you’ve read and enjoyed it (and even if you didn’t, but I wouldn’t expect you to do anything if you didn’t), if you wouldn’t mind swinging by and leaving a review there, I would be much obliged.  Thanks!

11 thoughts on “Attitude Adjustment

  1. I bet you feel a lot better now that you’ve done some thinking about things. Sometimes I have to stop and count my blessings when I’m feeling sorry for myself. Your house will sell eventually. Some young couple will want something smaller that they can afford. And, in the meantime, you do have a place to live. :0)

    Yay for your new attitude! Don’t make yourself miserable. You have a lot going for you. And, as I’ve said before, you rock!

  2. Hey, everyone has their down days.

    I copied my review from Smashwords and pasted it the first few places I could think of for you. I’ll do it for the others later—gotta get to work. 🙂

  3. Everybody needs a chance to rant about life. I’m glad you are able to step back and get some perspective. Some folks can’t, so at least you have that. Have a good weekend.

  4. Well, I know we are all thankful for you *hugs*. Sometimes the “dead ends” are blessings in disguise, too. I look back at things that made me crazy, but once I could see the bigger picture???

    This is a small story, but I sent a total Hail, Mary letter to James Rollins when I needed blurbs for this new book. Against all hopes, he said yes. So I go to the post office and this little voice said. “You need to overnight this.” And I argued with the little voice because little voice was going to cost me $40.

    “But…I don’t really have $40. How about 2-day?”

    “No…overnight it.”

    So I overnighted the book….just for it to be sent back three days later. I was ready to binge drink. Jim had a family emergency and was out of town. All the overnight mail gets returned if it goes to a P.O. box.

    I write back to Jim and say, “Hey, it got sent back. I spent $40 to overnight, but probably for the best. Take care of your family.” I gave up on a blurb and went back to the drawing board.

    Weeks later, I get an e-mail. Jim felt so badly about my lost $40 that he bought WANA….and was an instant fan. Not only did I get my blurb, but Jim loved WANA so much he bought his agent a copy. His agent is now MY agent.

    Sorry for the long reply, but it is just a short illustration of how we don’t see the big picture. This barricade in your progress might be saving you from something disastrous…or preparing you for something miraculous. Just do what you’re doing and focus on the blessings and one day, with better perspective you will see that all works out in the end.

    1. When stuff like this happens, I’m usually convinced it’s God trying to teach me patience. I am a crappy student of this subject. Like D student. And I’m an all A girl in everything else. Now that I’ve chilled out, I’ve come up with some things to help while we’re here and thought of some potential benes if we wind up staying. It’s not what I really want to do because, hey, NOT PATIENT, but I can deal. And I’ve learned that when things are supposed to be a certain way, I often face major disappointment first because I’m set on one path and that is not the path I’m meant to be on. Like grad school. Despite a 4.0 and sky high GRE scores, I didn’t get into the Ph.D. clinical programs I applied to. On paper I was perfect. But it would have committed me to another 6 years or more of schooling that would have distracted me from what I’m SUPPOSED to be doing–writing. And the only way I got that message was just having the door slammed in my face. So then I finished my master’s degree and finally acknowledged I wasn’t going to be happy doing anything but writing. So probably this is another one of those cases.

      1. I should tell you my story about trying to get into the military. All my life I wanted to be military like my family…yeah, well short of being hit by lightning, God was seriously slamming doors. Oh, and if I even got the bright idea to try again, he made me allergic to all kinds of foods to quash and remaining rebelliousness, LOL. But I would have been a military flight surgeon and not helping all of you guys live your dreams.

  5. Ranting always helps me, glad to see you releasing it all as well 🙂

    I often visit your site, in fact I’ve found several things that have helped me in my writing, so thank you for that 🙂 Yesterday I received a sweet acknowledgment and when it came time to pay it forward I thought of your blog…

    Congratulations! You have received the Versatile Blogger award! To claim your award please visit this post:

    http://simplysidney.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/versatile-blogger-award/

  6. I can really relate to this post – I think we all can. I love Kristen’s stories because I firmly believe the stuff we think is frustrating and terrible at the time turns out to be…for the best. Or if not exactly for the best…at least we understand and appreciate the curve in the road so much better!

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