Looking on the Bright Side

There is a song from the musical "Spam-a-Lot" (also from a Monty Python movie) called "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." If you've ever listened to it and know the melody, it will now be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. (I know it will be stuck in mine.) And although the song setting is irreverent, I think the song's message is great, especially for me, a perfectionist, who tends to see the flaws in everything instead of the good.

In our life's quest to be better and to improve ourselves, it is easy to look at every situation with a critical eye.  To ask ourselves, "What went wrong?" or "How could this or that improve?" or "What could I do better next time?" And those questions are great if we are taking stock of our lives and making a plan to work harder.  But often instead of asking questions to work harder we just make judgmental statements:  "Wow! that was stupid." or "I should have seen that coming." or "Why are you so dumb?" or "Why can't you do anything right?"

In my quest to become a non-perfectionist, I have learned that if I will stop and look and the good, my whole life and attitude are better.  It sounds simple.  It also sounds like something we've heard over and over from all different sources.  And I'm great at looking at the best in strangers.  When I see people on T.V. or I step into someone's house, I can see all the great things about them:  how beautiful they are, what great fingernails they have, what perfectly coifed hair, what gorgeous furniture, what clean carpet...etc, etc.  But when I look and my life and the people closest to me, I see all the flaws and things that make us not as good as everybody else.

I'm just going to give one personal example here of how looking on the bright side, or looking at the good has changed a significant thing in my life.  A few years ago, I heard a "Deliah" radio broadcast in which a listener had sent in a letter about how wonderful her husband was and all the great things he did for her.  One of those things was that he called her from work just to see how she was.  For some reason that hit me like a ton of bricks and I began sobbing.  Why?  Because my husband called me from work nearly every day.  Sometimes he called at a really inconvenient time and I'd be short or cross with him.  Sometimes he didn't have anything to say to me and in my practical world if you call someone you should have a reason and I'd just be annoyed.  The whole letter from this caller was about all the tiny things her husband did for her and how much she loved him for it.

After sobbing all the way home, I took a long hard look at my life and my attitude toward my husband.  I realized how judgmental I had been.  How often he did things for me and I just took them for granted, I'd just think that was what a husband was supposed to do and I'd expect more.  After all he wasn't perfect.  It has taken me years to see though my perfectionist tendencies and to start to notice all of the "little" things that are so wonderful about him, instead of picking at the "little" annoyances.  Those annoyances are so easy to overlook and become meaningless when compared with the "little" great things he does.  Here are just a few of the great "little" things he does every day.  When he has a job that allows it, he calls in the middle of the day just to see how I'm doing.  He gives up his free time to drive kids to various activities, including early morning religious study, because he knows I don't like to drive. When he's home and has time he washes the dishes after dinner to give me a break. He's supported me in being a stay at home mom sometimes even working as many as four jobs because he knows how important it is for me to be home with the kids. I could go on and on but I'll mention just one more and that is that I can count on one hand the number of times he has lost his temper with me.  Even through all of the times I've been an over perfectionist and picky and lost my temper with him, he has remained patient and loving.

Looking for the good instead of trying to change what I perceived as the not perfect has improved my life more than I could ever imagine. (And just so you know.  I'm still not perfect at looking for the good, it takes daily effort to squash out those perfectionist voices and replace them with seeing what is great.)