KEEP YOUR EXPECTATIONS MODEST.Don’t get hung up on what the holidays are supposed to be like and how you’re supposed to feel. If you’re comparing your holidays to some abstract greeting card ideal, they’ll always come up short. So don’t worry about holiday spirit and take the holidays as they come.
In an article posted on WebMD, http://www.webmd.com/depression/holiday-depression-8/boost-mood-tips?print=true (25 ways to find joy & balance during the holidays), I can't help but to focus on #1 (above)! Some of the 25 are quite funny, but #1 is the definitely the cure to holiday season blues.
Chatting with a girlfriend today, I realized there are quite a few people who tend to get a little blue as the holiday season approaches. Maybe it's the weather? Maybe being single during the holidays is hard... whatever it may be, the case of the winter blues can be rather difficult. It's not like summer, where you can jump in your bikini, layout, swim, flirt, and be out and about socializing to create excitement in your days. As December approaches I can't help but worry, not just for myself but for all of us single girls out there who don't have holiday plans and will probably just wait around till plans pop up, secretly wishing our reality matched up with our fantasies of what the holiday season would be like. We all have ideals of how holidays are supposed to be, how our dates are supposed to be, how are men are supposed to be, and a list of other things. Dropping these expectations can really make life a lot easier to live. That's why this holiday season, I am focusing on keeping my expectations modest in order to shift out of a place of constant disappointment.
This past summer I decided to implement what I like to call a 'granola' way of living: straying away from excess, excess shopping, eating, spending; detaching myself from a lot of material items I previously needed to have; amongst many other tactics in an effort to live a more modest, de-materialized life. In the process I not only experienced the essence of gratitude, I also built character and realized some of my internal issues. After a few months of consciously implementing daily rules I had set for myself, I ended up falling somewhere in the middle... I shifted out of my old ways permanently and now live a much healthier lifestyle. Hopefully, the cure to winter blues this winter will serve as yet another shift and growth for me in 2008.
1 comment:
Post a Comment