Affected

It has become a bit of a long standing joke amongst my circle of friends that I live in my own little bubble, where I see everyone dancing, holding hands, in a meadow of flowers and happiness. OK, it’s not quite that simple but I do try to stay positive, see the best in people and the world around me, and I take some ribbing for it, especially from myself; as I realise it is probably quite a naïve attitude to have. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism, and maybe it is just me that does it, but I like my bubble of innocence, it keeps me sane and happy, and most people are accepting, if not somewhat bewildered, by my rose tinted outlook on life. Sometimes though, life just engulfs me and it’s as hard to see the positives in something as the proverbial wood for the trees.

However, despite a strong resolve, even my moods and way of responding to situations are all affected by what I see and read, especially when something is so good that it captures my imagination, and this has been demonstrated to me this week, with quite intense results.

On Monday I decided it was time for a bit of self-help action. It’s been a while since I indulged my addiction and there is a documentary I have wanted to watch for some time now called “The Secret”, which is also a book by Rhonda Byrne. It is based on the “Law of Attraction” a quantum physics theory I don’t even pretend to understand. But the gist in the Secret is that whatever we think about and speak about we receive. So as long as we think positive, healthy and wealthy thoughts, we will get what we put out there. As a theory it’s one I support. Positive thinking is, to me, one of the most powerful tools at our discretion (and the basis for most self help books, probably why I like them so much), one that is often under used and over ridiculed in our society. I’m not sure how much positive thinking will really help you get that new car or a gazillion pounds in the bank, but if it helps us get closer to it, or at least makes us happier in the process then I’m all for it.

On Tuesday I awoke after a fairly peaceful night (still filled with the nightmares that now seem to plague my every sleep, but not as brutal or as disturbing as they have been of late) with a firm and familiar positive grip on the world. I lay in bed for a moment and thought about all the things in my life I had to be thankful for. So far so good. As the day wore on my natural positive thinking came back to me, when people asked me how I was, I responded with “I’m great!”, and I truly felt good.

Then on Tuesday afternoon I decided to start reading a book that had been on my reading list for months, “The Hunger Games”, and experienced a dramatic turn around in my positive outlook.

“The Hunger Games” is a trilogy (and now a film I can’t wait to see) by Suzanne Collins, about a post apocalyptic world where an evil regime, which lives in a lush and decadent capital, controls 13 starved and desperate districts. One district has been destroyed and each of the remaining districts are required to take part in “The Hunger Games”. Each year, all children between the age of 12 and 18 are entered into “The Reaping”, a process where one boy and one girl from each district are selected at random to appear in “The Hunger Games, a kind of brutal Big Brother. All contestants are required to fight to the death until only one person remains. The process of the Hunger Games is fully televised and becomes a national event, and people are required to celebrate and enjoy the brutality, lest they are punished by the regime. It is a harsh and scary tale, but brilliantly written and consumed me so much, I read the first two books in the trilogy within 48 hours and I have nearly completed the final book.

Throughout the reading of “The Hunger Games”, I have become harsher and more doggedly determined but overall a lot of the positivity and lightness I had gained from watching “The Secret” has gone, my nightmares have become even darker than they have ever been, with the usual players taking on even more vicious and brutal ways of torturing my sleep. But despite the way it has affected me emotionally, I can’t stop, I have to finish it, and hope that in the end, there is a positive outcome, that somehow despite everything that has happened in this world of death and misery, justice and happiness can prevail.

And then I’ll watch the Secret again and read something light hearted and funny. And I can get back inside my bubble. A little holiday to the darker side of life has been interesting and captivating, but like the youngest and weakest contestants in the Hunger Games, I don’t belong here.

This Life

I have always tried to live my life with no regrets. Why should we regret? If you always do what feels right at the time then you have always done the right thing, right? So I don’t regret that extra Cosmo on Saturday night that pushed me from merry to totally smashed, and I don’t regret eating that kebab afterwards that I have absolutely no memory of purchasing (but, weirdly, can remember perfectly vomiting back up).

But when bad things happen, and life seems pretty crap, it’s very easy to fall into a pattern of thinking what if? What would my life have been like if I had done this? Or if that hadn’t happened? Could things have turned out differently? The possibilities for how our lives could be altered are endless, the decisions we have made to get ourselves to this point are countless and we all have enough imagination to take ourselves on what feels like a nice little holiday to a different life, to any number of destinations.

So despite my “no regrets” rule, I have spent a lot of time recently taking a meander down What If Road. Things have occasionally been so bad that I have indulgently allowed myself to really go there, imagining all sorts of wonderful outcomes so far removed from my own life that I barely recognise myself in all the action, let alone the other main players. It’s not a conscious decision, maybe it’s a self protection reflex. The mind is a powerful thing, if life feels bad right now we can all conjure up a good one instead.

We’ve all done the “I won the lottery” daydream. “Right so I’ll give so and so this much, I’ll need that much for the house, this much for a new car…” and before you know it you are getting the calculator out working out how much of your “winnings” you have already spent. I wonder how many hours we as a people spend imagining a life where we had bought that lottery ticket, chosen a different husband, not had that extra Cosmo? Then there is that depressing moment usually only minutes later, when you realise how silly you are being, and live with the decisions we have actually made.

Because the fact is that all of those hours spent dreaming about something we never had are wasted. What if’s are not healthy, because with “what if” comes grief. We cannot avoid grief in our lives, we will all lose something or someone at some point, but the “what if” grief is utterly pointless. Not just because it didn’t turn out that way, but more because you are actually grieving for something you never had. Which just reinforces that although indulgent, and sometimes enjoyable and comforting for a moment, what if’s are a waste of time.

There is no parallel universe where you made a different decision and took another path, where you had something that you don’t in this life. The past has been written. There is only one life. This one. And you and your life are a result of the decisions that you (and sometimes other people) have made, you can’t go back and change them. So there is no point in mourning the loss of that million pound lottery win, because you never had it in the first place.

I try to steer my thoughts in a positive direction, and look forward to the future. But sometimes the “what if’s” are tempting, it’s a dirty little secret, a little addiction that can comfort me when things are looking bleak. But it is also a silent torture. Like many other addictions, when you come down from the high, and return to reality, it only makes real life seem more dark and hopeless.

I don’t need any more grief in my life, I have enough real grief to cope with without adding fake grief that I have brought on myself to the mix. Ultimately I’m pretty lucky. There are billions of people out there far worse off than I am, and for the most part, I have the ability to change my future.

While “what if’s” are damaging and unhealthy, daydreaming about potential futures is a dirty secret that I can safely indulge in, and enjoy. The past has been written and dreaming about things I never had to lose in the first place is a waste of precious time. I can’t escape yesterday with dreams, but sometimes when today is not shaping up too well, thinking about what path I might take tomorrow can be a real blessing. Maybe a lottery win is a bit far fetched, but you never know, it could be me.