Step 15 - Always Look on the Bright Side of LIfe

Day 15 of the National Blog Post Month challenge where I’m writing a blog post every day along the theme of 30 Steps to Happiness and Contentment.

Do you remember the song 'Always look on the Bright side of Life' from Monty Pythons' 'The Life of Brian', it always makes me laugh when I think of it, but it's very good advice.  

'That's easy to say, but harder to do' I hear you say.  Yes I know it is and at 7,30 this morning when I was clearing up runny dog poop which covered almost the entire floor space of our 90m2 living room, I thought the same.  But, as I was gagging and scraping up my dogs kind offerings into a plastic sack I thought hard about what the bright side could possibly be. I was not a happy bunny and there were more than a few expletives flying around this morning I can tell you!  How can there be a bright side to this situation? I asked myself.  After some thought I managed to come up with three.

Firstly, at least we have tiled floors and not a carpet (much easier to clear up), secondly it gave my floors a good clean which I had been meaning to do for some time and lastly, dog poop always makes good blogging material, doesn't it? Maybe not.....  Anyhow, it did make the task slightly more bearable and I started focusing on my blog and how I could use the experience to explain this point.  Cleared it up in no time, well that is if you consider over an hour no time (which I don't)!

What I'm trying to demonstrate is it's important to realise that we have a choice in how we respond to situations in life, we can either react positively or negatively. Fiona at NLP Mum wrote a really interesting post about this recently and it makes a lot of sense  NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming and Fiona explains the basics in this post Change your thoughts and you change your world.

If by taking the positive route and looking on the bright side can make such a difference with a small event, just think how much greater that difference will be with the big events and situations in life!  
There are times of course when we don't want to look on the bright side, we may feel we need to have a moan or feel sorry for ourselves or seek sympathy in certain situations and that's fine. But, it's easy to become a victim, to waste time and energy thinking 'why is this happening to me'.  The truth is bad things happen to everyone, it's how we react to them that determines how we deal with them.  Just remember that looking on the bright side is not a cop out for dealing or facing problems, it's a way of coping with them. 

Looking on the bright side is also similar to looking on the funny side.  It's well known that laughter is actually good for us, so to find the funny side of what appears to be a bad situation often helps you get through it.  I had a terrible journey with my children in the Summer Help, Medical Emergency with Kids on Board and I must admit at the time it was horrendous and difficult to find the bright side, but once the danger was over I was able to laugh about it.  Now when I think about it I remember the funny side of it, not the trauma.

So, try to always look on the bright side of any situation and it will make it easier to cope with!

You may be interested to read the other posts in this series:
Step 30 - The Key to Happiness and Contentment
Step 29 -You are the master of your own destiny
Step 28 - Don't give up on a good relationship
Step 27 - Don't Judge , Live and let live
Step 26 - Don't Worry, by happy
Step 25 - Never give up
Step 24 - Get by with a little help from your friends
Step 23 - Go with the Flow
Step 22 - Enjoy the moment
Step 21 - Love what you do
Step 20 - Forgive and Forget
Step 19 - Unconditional giving
Step 18 - Smile and the world smiles with you
Step 17 - Work to live, don't live to work
Step 16 - Surround yourself with Positive People
Step 15 - Always look on the bright side of life
Step 14 - Where there's a will there's a way
Step 13 - Silence is Golden
Step 12 - Feed your Soul
Step 11 - Follow your Dreams
Step 10 - Use your time wisely
Step 9 - Don't be too hard on yourself
Step 8 - Consider what you value most
Step 7 - Find time for Yourself
Step 6 - Make time for Family and Friends
Step 5 - Don't take yourself too Seriously
Step 4 - Feel the Fear and do it Anyway
Step 3 - Love what you Hate
Step 2 - There's no such word as CAN''T
Step 1 - Find the Best in Every Day