I was just at the bank and it was busy. The line must have been 20 people deep. And there were a lot of old people; 80+. Everyone was out wanting to do their banking and pay their bills and chat with the tellers.
I was observing the lines on their faces; on everyone's. Lines are so telling about how one lives their life. It's true. Try it sometime. I first took notice to this a few years back, but I have found myself automatically observing features more regularly. I was at a meeting with my colleagues recently and there is a boss-lady who is really quite successful in our business. She has obviously worked very hard to get to where she is. The first time I met her, I was to join her and her team for a business meet and greet luncheon. She was busy on a conference call. My first impression was that she was tall, blonde, attractive and obviously commanded attention. Her face smiled and her eyes twinkled, but it was so brief an encounter I would have been hard pressed to notice anything further.
Since then, that was almost a year ago, she and I have met again on numerous occasions in group settings. I watched her at the last meeting while she tuned out the round-table discussion and looked down her nose at her phone, answering emails, sending text messages... whatever she was doing. I saw years of lines; hard lines, frown lines; the way she held herself in those few moments, she aged herself 10 years. I started to look at the others, sitting around the tables and what their faces revealed. I saw it clearly. Happy, happy, happy, not happy, not happy, not happy, really unhappy and so on. What a tell! Their body language was equally as revealing. We each had to report on our area, and we do have a few disgruntled employees. I listened as one of my colleagues waived away her entire area as a problem. It was all bad. She couldn't see any areas for growth. She didn't see any potential success markers. She had already thrown in the towel and every time she opened her mouth, her words and tone and actions screamed out loud and relayed her negative attitude. Her lines were deep too. They were not happy lines.
But a happy face reads much differently. Another colleague presented her area and went into great detail as to each location, where the successes were and who was thriving and who needed extra attention. She described in detail to our American team leads that her entire area, while not flooded with locations is huge, and laid out a portion of America that totaled 7 States! If ever she needed to go anywhere, let it be known that she needed to drive a lonnnnngg way to get there. I watched the disgruntled frowny faces and saw their biting looks. And I watched the presenter's face...glowing, happy, stress-less. I know her personally too; she could have way more frown lines if she chose to wallow.
It's hard to always remain positive. But you can see who chooses to let life get the better of them. I can see clearly when I read my friends' status updates who has a positive outlook and who bitches and whines about every little thing. "Today's a good day, sun is shining but my back hurts" or "had a great date night, too bad the service was awful" (always a whomp-whoommmmppp in there somewhere) or "Loving the sunshine, might take the kids to the park" or "Makin' dinner, having a few drinks with friends, life is good!" or whatever the update will be. Some are glaringly negative all the time. Some, you want to put a bullet through your skull because they're so damn positive at 5 am it makes you sick... you know, if you're not a morning person like, say... me. I can tell you, there are those who try really, really hard to be happy. They post all sorts of inspirational things and things that remind themselves to love themselves. I say to them, "You go sister/ brother!" Keep trying. You will get there. And in the meantime, fake it till you make it. It's worth every tear, every bit of self doubt, every internal battle where you want to get down to another level and just let'em have it. And one day, maybe something will hit you like a freight train and you will break into a million pieces. Let it out. Don't try to be strong any longer. Let it out, cry like you've never cried before; wail if it makes you feel better! And then leave it there. Never look back. Paste on a smile and move forward because there, right there, is that light at the end of the tunnel. You are there... go for it. BE HAPPY!!!
I was asked recently, how I remain so positive all the time. The first thing that crossed my mind is, am I? and the second was because I've been on the side of negative, and I didn't like who I was. I guess I think that really, if life were going to kick the shit out of me, and oh- it has tried- I can take it and let it. Or I can face it head on and know it's not going to keep fighting me. It'll try, time and again, but the bad times never last. Nor do the good, but I don't dwell on that. Because the good times always trump the bad ones. And here's an example:
It was '91. My family was in transition. I was 14 years old and my parents were no longer in the missionary lifestyle... but they hadn't yet decided what to do. We were living in a retreat house with what I remember as a community of misfits. We were like the Isle of Mis-Fit Toys. In February during a cold snap of -30 temperatures, the pipes froze. The place was heated via water heaters at the base of the walls. We turned on our oven, and rounded up some blankets and sat in the kitchen... we may have had a small space heater too... but whatever... it didn't warm us up that much, but we were far from freezing. My recollection of that day was geez this sure sucks! and I remember my dad breaking down in tears and he kept saying he was a failure, we were homeless and he was a failure and he just beat himself up pretty badly over that situation. So one of my other recollections was we aren't homeless, Dad, we have a home, (which I didn't verbalize) and also that I'd never seen my dad like that. I remember Mom supporting him and coming into the kitchen to boost us up and going back and forth between situations.
My point in that little diddy, is look how far we've come. My parents did buy a home that summer, went back to school and became very successful. They even wrote a book (plugging your book FK and Mama-D! :-P) called Nurturing Your Hidden Spirit www.nurturespirit.ca. Imagine then, if they had taken another path and let life get the better of them.
Everyone has a hard life. Life isn't easy! No one said it would be. I would rather dwell on the good, remain happy and trust that everything awful in life will move on and not leave lines on my face. And, on a superficial note, laugh lines will always be more attractive than the alternative. We will all get old. Our faces will tell the tale of the path we chose.
I was observing the lines on their faces; on everyone's. Lines are so telling about how one lives their life. It's true. Try it sometime. I first took notice to this a few years back, but I have found myself automatically observing features more regularly. I was at a meeting with my colleagues recently and there is a boss-lady who is really quite successful in our business. She has obviously worked very hard to get to where she is. The first time I met her, I was to join her and her team for a business meet and greet luncheon. She was busy on a conference call. My first impression was that she was tall, blonde, attractive and obviously commanded attention. Her face smiled and her eyes twinkled, but it was so brief an encounter I would have been hard pressed to notice anything further.
Since then, that was almost a year ago, she and I have met again on numerous occasions in group settings. I watched her at the last meeting while she tuned out the round-table discussion and looked down her nose at her phone, answering emails, sending text messages... whatever she was doing. I saw years of lines; hard lines, frown lines; the way she held herself in those few moments, she aged herself 10 years. I started to look at the others, sitting around the tables and what their faces revealed. I saw it clearly. Happy, happy, happy, not happy, not happy, not happy, really unhappy and so on. What a tell! Their body language was equally as revealing. We each had to report on our area, and we do have a few disgruntled employees. I listened as one of my colleagues waived away her entire area as a problem. It was all bad. She couldn't see any areas for growth. She didn't see any potential success markers. She had already thrown in the towel and every time she opened her mouth, her words and tone and actions screamed out loud and relayed her negative attitude. Her lines were deep too. They were not happy lines.
But a happy face reads much differently. Another colleague presented her area and went into great detail as to each location, where the successes were and who was thriving and who needed extra attention. She described in detail to our American team leads that her entire area, while not flooded with locations is huge, and laid out a portion of America that totaled 7 States! If ever she needed to go anywhere, let it be known that she needed to drive a lonnnnngg way to get there. I watched the disgruntled frowny faces and saw their biting looks. And I watched the presenter's face...glowing, happy, stress-less. I know her personally too; she could have way more frown lines if she chose to wallow.
It's hard to always remain positive. But you can see who chooses to let life get the better of them. I can see clearly when I read my friends' status updates who has a positive outlook and who bitches and whines about every little thing. "Today's a good day, sun is shining but my back hurts" or "had a great date night, too bad the service was awful" (always a whomp-whoommmmppp in there somewhere) or "Loving the sunshine, might take the kids to the park" or "Makin' dinner, having a few drinks with friends, life is good!" or whatever the update will be. Some are glaringly negative all the time. Some, you want to put a bullet through your skull because they're so damn positive at 5 am it makes you sick... you know, if you're not a morning person like, say... me. I can tell you, there are those who try really, really hard to be happy. They post all sorts of inspirational things and things that remind themselves to love themselves. I say to them, "You go sister/ brother!" Keep trying. You will get there. And in the meantime, fake it till you make it. It's worth every tear, every bit of self doubt, every internal battle where you want to get down to another level and just let'em have it. And one day, maybe something will hit you like a freight train and you will break into a million pieces. Let it out. Don't try to be strong any longer. Let it out, cry like you've never cried before; wail if it makes you feel better! And then leave it there. Never look back. Paste on a smile and move forward because there, right there, is that light at the end of the tunnel. You are there... go for it. BE HAPPY!!!
I was asked recently, how I remain so positive all the time. The first thing that crossed my mind is, am I? and the second was because I've been on the side of negative, and I didn't like who I was. I guess I think that really, if life were going to kick the shit out of me, and oh- it has tried- I can take it and let it. Or I can face it head on and know it's not going to keep fighting me. It'll try, time and again, but the bad times never last. Nor do the good, but I don't dwell on that. Because the good times always trump the bad ones. And here's an example:
It was '91. My family was in transition. I was 14 years old and my parents were no longer in the missionary lifestyle... but they hadn't yet decided what to do. We were living in a retreat house with what I remember as a community of misfits. We were like the Isle of Mis-Fit Toys. In February during a cold snap of -30 temperatures, the pipes froze. The place was heated via water heaters at the base of the walls. We turned on our oven, and rounded up some blankets and sat in the kitchen... we may have had a small space heater too... but whatever... it didn't warm us up that much, but we were far from freezing. My recollection of that day was geez this sure sucks! and I remember my dad breaking down in tears and he kept saying he was a failure, we were homeless and he was a failure and he just beat himself up pretty badly over that situation. So one of my other recollections was we aren't homeless, Dad, we have a home, (which I didn't verbalize) and also that I'd never seen my dad like that. I remember Mom supporting him and coming into the kitchen to boost us up and going back and forth between situations.
My point in that little diddy, is look how far we've come. My parents did buy a home that summer, went back to school and became very successful. They even wrote a book (plugging your book FK and Mama-D! :-P) called Nurturing Your Hidden Spirit www.nurturespirit.ca. Imagine then, if they had taken another path and let life get the better of them.
Everyone has a hard life. Life isn't easy! No one said it would be. I would rather dwell on the good, remain happy and trust that everything awful in life will move on and not leave lines on my face. And, on a superficial note, laugh lines will always be more attractive than the alternative. We will all get old. Our faces will tell the tale of the path we chose.
No comments:
Post a Comment