Walker Boosting Your Joy

Happy Little Advice for Your Relationships, Your Career and Yourself
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-5366-4
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 293 Seiten

Your marriage feels off; your kids rule the roost and run all over you. You're disconnected from your friends. You are moody or get angry often. You don't have adequate time to handle your home or manage your career. You're unsatisfied with where you are professionally and constantly worry about money. And to top it all off, your favorite jeans don't fit. If the joy has been sucked out of your life and you're being pulled in too many directions, Boosting Your Joy will guide you toward reaching both your career and personal goals while filling your life with happiness.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Walker, Catherine

Leseproben

Chapter One LOVE THE ONE YOU ARE WITH   “Choose your Love; Love your choice.” —Thomas Monson   Loving someone else is brave. It creates vulnerability to care about someone. But it’s the most rewarding human endeavor. We’re supposed to offer our hearts to one another and love fiercely.   My husband Vincent is my favorite person on this earth. I love him madly. He is my whole world. And he drives me crazy. That in a nutshell sums up marriage. You pluck someone out of a bunch of people and hope to craft a joyful life together.   My wedding day was the best day of my life, in spite of the fact that a band member stepped on one of our cakes and the baker had to run back and make another one. In spite of the fact that a full glass of wine was tipped down my wedding dress at the first table I greeted during the reception. It’s still my favorite day!   The memory of walking down the aisle toward my gorgeous soon-to-be husband Vincent is seared in my brain. He was there at the altar with his eyes shining and his lips smiling just for me. And I was thinking, “Lucky me, I have you. I have you beside me to “do life” with. I have you to be a daddy to my future kids. I have you to shore me up when times are tough.”   And twenty-five years later, we have certainly faced some challenges. We’ve raised three daughters, bought two houses and both changed companies we worked for several times. We’ve had lean times with four job losses, losing money in the 2008 stock market crash and having two house payments at once. We’ve had tragedy in our lives with the loss of our four-month old nephew, Logan. We’ve had health scares like dealing with my mom’s kidney failure and encountering anxiety and depression in our household. Life has not always been smooth sailing. I still feel lucky in love.   My grandfather was married for sixty years to my grandmother. Pop-Pop as we called him used to always say, “Dance with the one who brung you.” In other words, stay with the one who has stuck by your side. The saying expresses loyalty toward your partner not just in the good times, the easy times or when it suits you, but all the time. Too many people say “I do” and then when life gets hard, they quickly question, “Do I?”   A good marriage isn’t something you find. It’s something you make. So just how can you do that?   MAINTAINING REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS   I tease Vincent that the key to a happy marriage is low expectations. But seriously, it’s true. If you expect your husband to be the one to “make” you happy, that’s setting him up for failure big time. Your spouse wasn’t put on this earth to be in charge of your happiness. That’s a big ask. When you maintain realistic expectations of what another person can deliver, you live a more satisfied life.   Men aren’t equipped to be our emotional thermometer. They are not mind readers. They are not even good face readers. Or haircut noticers. But they are ours. So we keep them.   A happy life isn’t so elusive with that someone special by your side. People with significant others tend to be happier and more satisfied in general. Now that isn’t saying there aren’t hard days. Your husband isn’t supposed to be Mr. Perfect. He just needs to be Mr. Perfect for You. We all have quirks. He does. You do. Being able to live with the other person’s idiosyncrasy is what gives your marriage a chance.   Joy Break: Follow the Signs My daughter Kennedy at age ten asked, “How will I know my husband when I meet him? How will I know HE is the one?” I said there would be signs. Perhaps that was too ambiguous, because then she asked, “What? Like a big red sign with an arrow pointing at him?”   I used to believe couples should stay together no matter what. Work it out. I no longer think that’s the straight up answer. When couples aren’t good for each other, staying together for the kids doesn’t show what love really looks like. Rather it shows the opposite. Perhaps it’s better to go find a fit that works.   My in-laws, Madalyn and Jerry have each been married three times. In our family, we say, “Sixth time’s the charm” because they ended up with the best partner, even though they had to take a few dry runs. Sometimes you follow a crooked path to find each other. And others know right out of the gate.   My freshman roommate in college had never been on a date. One day a fellow engineer major in one of her classes came by and asked her if she wanted to get pizza. She declined and he left. Being present for all of this, I said, “Why did you say no? You should go get pizza with him!!”   She said, “Well, it’s too late now.”   I declared, “No it isn’t. Run after him. Tell him you do want to go.” So she did and they started dating. Years later she sent me a wedding invitation with a personal note saying how glad she was I told her to run after him. They never would’ve gotten married without my meddlesome assistance. He remains the first and only man she dated.   Joy Break: Booting the Groom My brother-in-law Ian is from England and he married my sister-in-law Anita from Texas. To honor her upbringing, he wore Texas cuff links and cowboy boots to their wedding. I told him right before the ceremony that I loved seeing him in those boots because they make terrible running shoes. Hard to leave a bride at the altar when your soles are slippery!   I heard about a husband who was in the middle of making a sandwich and then said he was going out for mayonnaise, but never came back. He just left the sandwich and marriage unfinished. Now that family gives a jar of mayonnaise to all new brides and grooms joining their clan to ensure they will never have to “run out to get some.” Once you’ve found your Mr. Perfect for you, keep the mayo stocked.   LIVING WITH YOUR ROMEO   I saw a sign once that said, “90% of being married is just yelling, ‘What?’ from the other room.” Finding Romeo can be tricky. Living with Romeo may be even trickier. We all saw what happened to Juliet!   I recommend facing marriage with a sense of humor. That was the number one quality in a husband that was important to me. I wanted to have fun every day. I wanted someone to live joyfully with. Interestingly enough, women enjoy laughing more than men but men enjoy making women laugh. So it works out. True to form, I crack up more than my husband Vincent but he’s the one often causing me to chuckle.   He amuses me wherever we go, even in a foreign country. On a trip to Paris, I was very interested in going to see the Palace of Versailles. I wrote an assignment on it in middle school so I was very excited to see it in person. When we were at the window to buy admission tickets, the woman asked if we wanted headsets to hear the audio information. Vincent said, “Oh no, I brought my wife. She did a report on it in sixth grade.”   I looked at him and then looked at the woman and said, “Two headsets please.” Good grief.   My best friend Stacy says, “You know a marriage will be successful when both parties feel they got the better deal.” I personally think I’m one lucky girl. Vincent remembers what I order at various restaurants around town. I just look at him and he offers up what I like here. It’s nice to share a brain with someone. My sister Rebecca says her husband Charles has an incredible memory. He will recount stories all the time and Rebecca doesn’t remember any of it even though she was present.   So now they have a recurring joke between them, Charles says, “Yes, you were there and yes, you had a great time!”   A dear family member, Sonya, knew she was with “the one” when her dad asked, “Is he your umbrella fellow? Will he stand with you in the storms of life? Will he shelter you and care for you? And keep the rain off your back?” Sonya said, “Yes. I found my umbrella fellow.”   My Aunt Ginger faced a storm when her husband Roger was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Degeneration. He lost his ability to speak and reason and retreated into dementia. It was devastating to witness. Ginger would sing to him nightly:   You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine You make me happy when skies are gray You’ll never know dear, how much I love you Please don’t take my sunshine away   Roger’s light went out after four years of battling this disease. Ginger was committed to him to the end. Roger will always be hers. But the heart is a funny thing. It expands and makes room for more. We saw evidence of this after Roger’s death. Ginger fell in love with Steve, the nurse who took care of Roger. Steve was kind and compassionate to both Roger and Ginger and after Roger died, there was a continued bond and a pull to be together. I think that’s also what love is capable of. Freeing a widow from loneliness. Loving your spouse to the end is a big commitment. And I’m not saying it’s an easy one. Just a worthy one.   When my daughter Hailey was six, our...