Optimisms
Cheering each other on
Your Life’s NOT in Ruins!
The other day, I caught the Nia Vardalos movie My Life in Ruins. Not only did it make me salivate for Greece (sigh), but I recognized what a lot of us go through in life and love in Nia’s character, Georgia, who was feeling frustrated by her life as a travel guide through the country. 
Instead of being open to all that life had to offer, Georgia was trudging through the motions of her job, feeling hopeless about her love life, and seeing no light at the end of the tunnel. Sound familiar?
If it does, maybe you’d appreciate the same message Georgia got in the film from the character Irv (played by Richard Dreyfuss), who acted as the movie’s wise “oracle.” His finest moment came, I think, when Georgia was giving Irv reasons why she felt she wasn’t close to the love or life of her dreams. When she was finished, Irv had this to say:
“You’re looking for obstacles rather than looking for magic.”
What a genius line. And what a great thing to challenge yourself with, too, when the walls of difficulty seem too high to climb over. When you look to the future love you want to have, are you looking at the obstacles, or are you open to the magic?
Love is not rational, remember. It’s the one thing in life that whisks away even the most practical, organized, type-A. Love is all about magic. And if you want to invite it into your life, start getting good at believing in it! If you focus on the obstacles to having love (“I work too hard to date,” “No one I like likes me back,” “What’s the point, everyone’s a jerk anyway.”), then obstacles are all you will hit. Look, instead, further along the horizon. Look for the magic.
You might also like:
Oh, Sherri: Her Lessons in Love
Big love,
Take the Menu Challenge!
When I was single, I started to worry that I was becoming so set in my ways—what I liked to eat, what time I liked going to bed—I’d have a hard time finding a person to fit into them. After all, the older we get, the more we like things the way we like ’em.
Try something new to show you're open to new
This is natural and healthy, it’s called figuring out who you are. But there is something to the idea that if you keep doing exactly the same thing every single day, you may have a hard time seeing the possibility of a new life with someone else. So here’s an OPTIMISM ASSIGNMENT for you: Order something different off the menu at the place you go to all the time.
I know, I know, you love the chopped salad with the goat cheese. And me, I have the hardest time not ordering the shredded beef Szechuan at my Chinese place. But the thing is, ordering the same thing all the time at the same place is a sign that you may be falling into all sorts of predictable patterns in your life. The same walk home. The same drink out. The same shows on TiVo. But love, as we know, is not predictable. So today, practice doing something unpredictable as a symbol that you are open to new things! To new people, to new dates, to new interests, to a new life with a new partner who’ll make you smile every single morning you wake up—no matter what time you went to bed. Take the menu challenge and see it as a step toward opening up even more for the great relationship you’re meant to have.
You might also like:
The Coffee Test
The Freakin’ Fun Dating List
Big love,
Be Happy That…
My single friend Sarah called me last night in one of those bummed out moods because her whole search for love seemed like a pointless, hopeless, exhausting effort. Not to mention, the overtime at work was killing her and her bathroom just flooded. “Can something in my life please go right for a minute?” she asked.
(Clarkson Potter Publishers)
We addressed the real stuff, how she probably needed to take a rest from dating while she found a place of calm and happiness in herself—and sorted out that bathroom. But on a lighter note, if you’re ever feeling like this, sometimes it helps to remember some of the more unlikely or even absurd reasons to be grateful. Enter a book about upbeat, offbeat reasons to smile: Be Happy That…This Book Isn’t Covered in Poison, Plus 100 Other Reasons to CHEER UP. Some of those other 100 reasons:
3 Tricks to Flip Your Frustration!
A construction project has been going on next to our house for over two years, which is a long time to wake up to hammers and sandblasters. And for much of the time they’ve been renovating the small apartment units next door, I’ve been frustrated by it.
There is always a brighter side, a better view
You know, just as I get my cup of tea to the front porch with a good book to read, the crane pulls up to—beep beep beep—back in and dig more dirt from the front yard. But since this construction project wasn’t going anywhere, I had a choice to make like we all do every day: I could tense up and hate my days, or I could find a way to love it. My version of, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
It all reminds me of how I felt when I was dating. How, you know, you can either be depressed and frustrated about being single, grumbling over every bad date and cursing every undependable person…or, you can flip your frustration and decide to find the good in it. Here are three ways to do just that:
1. Make a game out of the unknown. I started to
Want to Be Where You’re Not? Learn from American Movie
I finally saw American Movie for the first time. I know, I know, I’m ten years behind on the Chris Smith documentary about amateur Wisconsin filmmaker Mark Borchardt, who is determined to make his first feature-length horror film, Northwestern. Yet as passionate about it as he was, and as knowledgeable and well-spoken about the filmmaking process, Mark kept hitting a wall to success: his stars and extras kept backing out, his bills piling up, and his hopes kept getting dashed again and again.
At one point, his girlfriend Joan said this of his quest for fame and fortune:
He wants to be somewhere where he’s not. But then, don’t most people want to be somewhere where they’re not?
I found what she said so simple, yet so important. Sometimes,
Follow me on Facebook 
Grab the Feed (RSS)
Email Amy