A Different View

I love that the English vocabulary has all kinds of phrases that put an instant visual to human experiences or actions.  While some might be getting antiquated, they conjure up an image that we either want to quickly dispel if it is directed at you, or hold onto if it makes the day seem a bit softer.  When your braggart sister-in-law goes into nausea inducing detail about her latest House Beautiful living room makeover, and you struggled to scrape up the dollars for a Sure Fit slip cover for your twenty year old castoff couch, jealousy starts creeping in.  Picturing your face looking like a Green Eyed Monster may help you push forward a more socially acceptable and mature response, such as just a smile.  Urban dictionary defines luck of the Irish as an ability to look at the positive in adverse situations, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as it were.  When I can harness it on those days filled with crap, that image of a rainbow with a pot of gold on the other end, or the similar theme view of a “light at the end of the tunnel”, really can be a respite to my overtaxed mind.  

What I need though is a phrase that gives me that instant image of what incessant negativity looks like.  I have been harboring doomsday feelings in every corner of my life lately, some probably with justification, but most blown out of proportion.  I find they are creeping into happy moments, and interfering with relationships and momentum.  It's keeping me whining about the flaws and work needed in my house instead of getting things done.  Others are noticing, I fear.  At a not so great meeting earlier in the week, where I thought I was proactively raising issues in a constructive way, my colleague had an opposite response.  His perception of me being a negative person hit me hard in the face.  I spoke with a friend about this on a long walk.  She said to me, “it sounds like you need a new pair of glasses.”  We’ve all heard the phrase “see the world through rose colored glasses”, but she was suggesting that I was doing the opposite.  We laughed and kept walking.

 I’ve been thinking a lot since that walk though and her analogy.  While people shouldn’t live in denial that problems and issues will go away if you just think positive thoughts, it is equally true that few situations are unresolvable, and other people really are not out to muck-up your day.  Maybe I have a touch of the old summer complaint, or maybe it is the dog days of August sucking away my good mood.  Whatever it is, I’m going to see if I can rustle up a picture in my head of my sun glasses coming off, and new glasses coming on and see if that helps. They won’t be rose colored either-just plain, ordinary, and clear.