Today, I had a bit of an epiphany. (As I often do.) I caught myself getting sucked into bouts of what people on the forums like to call "stinkin' thinkin'." My mind frequently gravitates towards the anger and betrayal of my sitch, and today I thought, "Who is this helping? Nobody. It's only dragging me down and making me feel worse."
I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes, attributed to Buddha: "Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."
I am often inspired by people who come into my bank every day with an infectious grin and a warm, energizing attitude. Whatever might be going on in their lives, they clearly make an active choice to be positive, happy people. Not only does it make them feel better, it makes the people around them feel better. I like helping positive people the most because it makes me feel good just being around them.
So...basically....working harder on cultivating a PMA. I'm tired of making the conscious choice to be unhappy. It serves no one.
Also, my other big goal is to GAL in the form of being around other people. I am proud of the GAL-ing that I am doing in my personal life including reading, watching good flicks, exercising, and writing, but apart from excursions to my home town to visit with my family, I'm not doing a very good job of meeting new people.
Part of the problem is the area. My W and I moved here solely because this is her hometown and her parents live here, so the only friends I made here are ones who were already friends with my W. I have no friends of my own.
Another problem is my work. Work is great and has allowed me to get out with my co-workers to go to dinner. However, I won't lie when I say that women outnumber men in my profession greatly. Any guys are usually in higher positions or work in the back offices.
A third problem is money. While I'm not flat-broke, I don't have a lot. I like to keep what I can in reserve.
A fourth problem is that I'm a bit of a paradox when it comes to socializing. I am the kind of person who is initially very shy and hates being dropped into a situation with people who I don't know. However, once I get to know someone and get a feel for how they work, I completely loosen up and become very talkative, joking, and out-going.
Any suggestions? I'm hoping to make at least one of these local write-ins for NaNoWriMo. It seems like such a great opportunity, and I would hate to waste it.
On a side-note, does anybody have any perspective on the sitch with my W and OM? I hate to bring this up because I shouldn't be thinking about her at all, but I figure that it wouldn't hurt to hear some advice. Coming up on the 14th, she will have been living with him for three months.
I thought for sure that being forced to live with OM day-in and day-out for just a short while would destroy the fantasy that most A's seem to be built on. When she called me complaining about him, saying that his "true colors" were showing, I thought for sure that it was over. Now all I hear from her is how they're probably going to get M'd and how he walks on water.
At this point, I'm starting to become convinced that OM really is everything my W wants. (I'm not going to lie, hearing her say, "He's everything you should have been" during our last meeting cut me to the bone.)
