Negativity is a drag and the word for the day is optimism. I’m the glass is half-full kind of person. I believe that hope springs eternal and everyday is a new day. I like to carry this outlook into my relationships. There are many benefits to focusing on the good points.
In order to get married at our church, my husband and I needed to attend the required pre-marital counseling classes. I thought that was an awesome idea and it really opened our eyes to quite a few number of things that we needed to work on in our individual lives. I remember that one of the assignments was to write out a list of the top ten things that we love about our partner. We were supposed to list only the positive qualities and nothing negative. We were then asked to read that list to each other right there in the session in front of the marriage counselors, whom by the way had been happily married for over 30 years. The lesson for that class went on to explain that we should keep our list and hide it away and after we were married, anytime we got angry at our mate or needed a reminder of why it is that we actually got married in the first place, we should look at the list we wrote and remember.
Reading the list again would cause us to focus on our mate’s good qualities and not the bad ones. I’ve had to take my list out a number of times during our five years of marriage. When we focus on the negative qualities of our mate, or even the negative things happening around us, we lose our grip on hope and the negativity takes hold of us. We lose our faith and take a few steps backward. Regardless of what you believe in life, it is vital to retain hope! Hope in better days to come is what can get you up in the morning and help you to make it through another lousy day at work and then an even lousier evening with your mate when you got in another argument.
I’m not always very vocal with my praise, but I know that my husband needs it. He works hard and puts in long days at work all so that he can support us and give me a good life. I know how much he soaks up encouragement, so I write him an encouraging note every night and put it by his cell phone on his nightstand. He leaves early in the morning, before I get up, but I know that he loves to receive my notes and he told me he looks forward to it every morning.
You may not write notes to your mate, but think of something that you can do to encourage him or her. Write your own list of your mate’s best qualities and remember why you two feel in love. Rekindle your romance with encouragement. Keep smiling and keep hanging on to hope. Joy will come in the morning!
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