Skip to main content

Cure for the Common Pity Party


I have compiled a list of helpful ways to get yourself out of that self-focused rut we all fall into on occasion. Tried and tested by yours truly.

  1. Clean the house. Take out all those negative emotions on the floor, the bathroom, and the stack of dirty dishes. Then look at them sparkle and be glad again. I recommend listening to upbeat music.
  2. Ask someone how their day was - not so they'll return the favour and you can rant about your crappy life, but to genuinely listen to somebody else.
  3. Choose a person and bless them. Give something away, bake cookies, find someone on the street and give them a $5 bill.
  4. Go to the gym. Kind of like cleaning the house, except no shiny floors. Just sweat and some killer tunes dancing around your head.
  5. Watch a WWII movie. Or any genocide-based movie. All of a sudden, your life seems like a bed of roses. No one is killing your entire people group.
  6. Remind yourself of this verse, then do it. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:10)

Comments

  1. atta girl!
    saweet job on the verse (:

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha! This post popped upon my 'blogs you are following' thing and I was like 'OMG, where did this random blogger get my photo from?' and then I realized 'she's not random, she's Beth!'

    I'm really enjoying the blog, btw!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, Beth...I needed that posting quite badly when I first read it and purposely made myself come back to read it again today. It's excellent advice.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro