“Self-Pity Is A Dead End Road.” – Cheryl Strayed
Imagine you’re at a McDonald’s drive-thru. You order the McFlurry with M&M’s (for those who don’t know what that is, it’s a cup of soft serve vanilla ice cream mixed with yummy mini M&M’s candy) and pay for it at the first window. You then pick it up at the second window and happily drive away. Your mouth is already watering at the thought of tasting those tiny bits of chocolate surrounded by the soft creamy and sugary vanilla goodness. You can’t wait to get home so you can get in your PJs, curl up on the couch and turn on your favorite television show while taking the first bite of that deliciousness. Twenty minutes later, you start to do just that. Everything is going as planned until you open the McDonald’s bag and inside you find an OREO McFlurry instead. Your immediate reaction is anger and then…wait for it…self-pity. It’s so awful that they messed up your order. You were craving those M&M’s all day while working your tiring desk job. You worked so hard and you just wanted to relax and eat the treat you deserved. Poor you! How could they be so careless? Why do these things always happen to you? You never get what you want. Ugh!
Does this sound familiar? For me it definitely does. We all have those days when disappointment creeps in and seems to kick you when you’re already down. You don’t understand why you just can’t get what you want. You sit there and complain to someone or most of the time, you end up just complaining to yourself. The truth of the matter is this: Yes, it sucks that you didn’t get your M&M’s ice cream. In fact, it’s quite annoying, but complaining and wallowing in self-pity will not make it appear. As author Cheryl Strayed says, “It’s a dead end road.” The only thing that will make that M&M’s McFlurry appear is if you get in your car, drive back to McDonald’s and get it. Or if you’re lucky, someone else will get it. Either way involves the act of going out and getting it. It’s a source of action that will fix this, not a source of sad, useless feelings. I understand things will happen to us in life more serious than getting the wrong ice cream, but the point I’m trying to make is the same. This is true with everything that goes wrong in our lives. Action is the only thing that will either help you get what you want or at least make things better.
We all want to feel bad for ourselves at one point or another and we all have the right to do so. Just don’t ever expect that to change the situation. All it really does is make you dwell on it and make that feeling last longer than it would otherwise. I’ll be the first to admit that if I seriously took action as much as I complained and felt sorry for myself, I’d have done a lot more in my past. We hear this kind of thing all the time, but it’s so true. Once you can transform listening into doing, things will always progress. Positive thinking and letting go of things that can bring us down is easier said than done, but holding on to feelings of sadness or disappointment will never fix the things we want to fix. Only taking action can do that. Try to be happy and relax. An OREO McFlurry really isn’t that bad. 🙂 Glow & shine bright! xo