06-27-18 How to Live in the Story, Get Out of the Footnotes, and Stay Positive No Matter What.
The first of this year, we had our main sewer line collapse. Right after we bought our house. And we were flat broke. And were mad. And we felt used, and stupid for not having (or being advised to have) a separate sewer inspection. Sadly, there was nothing we could do about it, except take out a loan and repair the sewer.
It would have been so easy to let that disaster define our experience buying that home.
Suddenly, the wonderful story of buying a vacation home for our family to enjoy for generations to come, could have become a story of financial disaster, blame, lawsuits and ruination.
Fortunately, we were wise enough to realize that what happened to us, was merely a footnote in the otherwise positive story of purchasing a vacation home. Which is relevant for so many of the events that occur in our lives. Whether materialistic, financial or relational, if we want to live a happy life, we have to be consciously aware of what the main story consists of, and what the footnotes consist of. Then, we have to choose where we want to live.
Life is full of problems, but our problems are not our story. Our story is our story. Our problems are the footnotes. We cannot ignore the footnotes, but if we want to be happy, we cannot get stuck living in them.
Ignoring Problems Only Makes Them Bigger
Like the sewer, if we buried the broken sewer pipe and sold the house, we may not have to deal with the pipe, but the pipe would still need fixing. The new people purchasing the house would have to fix it, and we would have essentially passed our problems on to others without learning from them. And worse, we would have damaged others in the process. And we all know that karma is real!
More than likely, the people we passed our problems on to would call us out on our unethical behavior and we would get sued, and have to pay for the pipe anyway. Or our friends, who we tell the story to, or who surmise what happened, no longer want to deal with us because they know we are dishonest. Or they let others in the community know, and soon, the whole community has a tainted view of us, which impacts us forever. Like the sewer, there’s no way to get around a problem by burying it.
Taking Care of Ourselves, Protecting Our Joy and Solving Our Problems
The solution isn’t simply to take care of our problems whenever they arise – because that’s so much easier said than done – the solution is also to consciously surround ourselves with the kinds of people who take care of their problems and live in their story, not in the footnotes.
Surrounding ourselves with people who are positive and who do the right thing make us capable of doing the right thing. When the people around us say things like, “I struggle with depression, but here’s what I do…” we assume their victor mentality. We understand that they too have problems, but we see that they are choosing to live in the story, not in the footnotes, and we are emboldened to do the same.
Negativity Breads More Negativity
When we surround ourselves with victims, we too become victims. We adopt their victim mentality, and we begin to act in accordance with their values, not ours. We see that they are living in the footnotes, and eventually we begin to believe that the story lies in the footnotes. We change our story.
Victims support us in our negative or helpless feelings. Victims talk about how terrible or unfair life is, about how bad the world is, and how we need to be alert, or bad things will happen. They complain about how stupid people are, that the world is falling apart and it’s all hopeless. And that’s what we become.
Perhaps you have heard the some from the musical Wicked, called For Good? The lyrics to that song say, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” And that’s the secret to happiness right there. That really is what it’s all about.
Make it Easy by Blocking Negative People From Your Life!
Life is hard enough, and I none of us need to work any harder than we already are. Living with negative people make it harder to live in our own story. So, choose your friends wisely. Blocking negative people on social media or in your life isn’t rude, it’s smart. Address life head on, in the open, with the help from other positive people, and be inspired to work through problems because of it.
Fix the sewer and get back to living your story. Perhaps you are like me. I need all the help I can get keeping my vibration high and keeping me flowing happily down the river of life. Because I’m selfish, because I don’t need to work harder than I am, I use discernment and choose my friends wisely.
Because I want to live my story. I don’t want to get lost in the footnotes.
I’m offering a FREE 15 minute coaching call with me. All you have to do is send me a request to join my “FLAUNT! Fitness” Facebook, and then post on your Facebook page, “I just joined an amazing educational support group, FLAUNT! Fitness! I thought you might like to join too, so you can up your game this summer!” Be sure to tag me, Lora Plank Cheadle, so we can set up your FREE coaching call! lora@pyramidfusion.com or 303-994-4945
