Last night, I had a dream that I was in an old friend’s house, my dream house. A little American-styled wooden-clad house with a wide front porch. It wasn’t huge, but big enough to feel spacious. Each room was a deep, bold colour – plaster pink, hague blue, calke green (all Farrow and Ball paint colours I pine after). Brimming with top-of-the-line furniture that was made to look chic farmhouse, with accents that weren’t quite minimal but also not cluttered. Outside was a green paradise with enough space for the boys to play football, with fairy lights (that hadn’t been chewed away at by rats, as ours have been) strewn crisscrossed over a deck full of people and platters of fancy tapas.
In the dream, I complained to our hosts about our own house. How common, shabby, not chic, and dilapidated it was. I was gently told off in the dream for my lack of gratitude.
On waking, the telling-off stuck with me, and I’ve spent the day reflecting on how much I have. How much I’ve been blessed with.
Most days, I’m either researching, interviewing for, or writing on topics of injustice. Asylum seekers escaping war only to end up in countries whose governments don’t want them. Women who have been locked behind prison bars with their babies for poverty-related offences. Families living in overcrowded refugee camps. Girls who don’t have money to pay for period products. People trapped in Afghanistan hoping not to be found by the Taliban. Children who have been exploited into criminal gangs. And the list just goes on.
And yet, even though I’m confronted with some of the darkest parts of human nature and experience, I’m still so often unable to see the good I’m living in.
The classic line of - at least you have - just doesn’t seem to work so much of time. But should it?
My house is falling apart. At least you have a house.
My hair is thinning. At least you have health.
My kids are driving me bonkers. At least you could have children.
My work feels overwhelming. At least you have a job.
You get the gist.
It feels uncaring, the response. It ignores someone’s pain, maybe your own, even if it is indeed true.
In the midst of those ‘hard’ moments, we just want someone to listen to us.
I want someone to hear me, commiserate with me, and maybe even give me a hug (actually, maybe not a hug).
And yet simultaneously, concurrently (both words I love so fitting them in), perspective has this superpower of taking us out of our own bodies to see what lies around us.
We easily get wrapped up in our own worlds, unable to see anything but our own, everything. Until we see that there is more than just our own worlds.
A couple of weeks ago, I was at what you might say was a low point of burnout. I cried. I had a racing heart. I was exhausted. I couldn’t complete even small tasks. They were all very real emotions and symptoms I couldn’t just get rid of at the snap of my fingers.
Then for my other job (in addition to writing I manage a befriending project that links up survivors of modern slavery with people in their communities) I met a woman who would have been exploited and enslaved. As I looked at her, all of my problems took their rightful place. I was bombarded with all I have to be thankful for as I listened to her speak. By gentle osmosis, her world collided into mine, and I could suddenly see all the good around me.
Another similar but different awakening happened when I hiked up a mountain nearby us on my own. I’ve actually been up five times in the course of a month because it’s a coping strategy atm. Walking up alone, with only a multitude of sheep around me, I kept feeling smaller and smaller. All of my ‘problems’ disappearing into a great void of ever-expanding green. I came down lighter.
Seeing beyond ourselves is, I think, very helpful. But the way in which it’s done should be tactful. Not forced or manipulated, but welcomed when presented. For instance, I don’t think I would ever receive it well if someone ‘told me off’ for not having a correct perspective on my own anxiety or worry. However, if I’m open to it, my perspective will naturally shift when I listen to news and/or conversations. Or if while walking outside, you’re able to meditate on your smallness in the midst of the earth’s bigness, a natural shift could occur as you reflect on the relative insignificance of that day’s troubles.
It's the end of the day now (if you remember, I was saying last night I had that dream about feeling totally unappreciative in light of my friend’s glorious little abode). A day of reflecting on how I am grateful for this house. Even though the house is in some way falling apart, it is a house, which is so much more than most of the world has. And for that, I’m thankful.
I’ve been feeling the same way. I know I am incredibly fortunate for having so much in my life but I want more. I want to sell more books. To be published by a leading publisher. On good days I am grateful to my readers and for what I have achieved but other times I despair and feel a failure. I know I only feel like this when I am tired.
I expect having dependent children you are often tired. Maybe accept this is why you feel negative and be kind to you!