How focus affects happiness:
Recently, one of my sons turned 37 and the other will turn 38 at the end of the month.
It makes me chuckle to remember how the youngest always loved that feeling of “catching up” with his big bro!
I learned yesterday that this is known as having “Irish Twins” (a term which I’m sure is now frowned upon!).
Apparently, the term originated in the US in the 1800s as a disparaging stereotype of Irish Catholic immigrant families who didn't have access to birth control.
They were seen as lacking money, education, and self control.
Impoverished. Impaired. Inferior.
It’s how I felt many people viewed me when I fell pregnant at 15, and especially when I was pregnant again within three months after giving birth to my first.
I noticed how my married sister had a very different reaction when she announced she was pregnant a year before me.
“OOOOH! Congratulations!”, “Don’t go doing too much- you should put your feet up!”, “What do you want - a girl or a boy?”
At best I had, “Oh no! I’m so sorry. Are you OK?”
At worst I had, “You stupid cow!” or “That’s it! Your life’s over now!” or “I hear you have to have babies now because your doctor said you can’t have any more abortions.” (I’d never had an abortion).
Nobody asked me if I was hoping for a boy or a girl.
Nobody said I should be taking it easy in my condition.
Nobody was happy for me.
As my beautiful babies grew into scrumptious toddlers, I began to be accepted as a mum rather than a freak show, and the remarks changed slightly.
People would talk to my boys in the street in the little village where I lived, and would look up at me and say things they might say to a “respectable” woman such as, “What lovely boys! You’ve got your hands full though, haven’t you?”
Some of my friends who couldn’t imagine being in my position said to me, “I love your boys, but I don’t know how you cope!”
Whenever they said that to me, the answer was easy:
“You’re right - sometimes it feels hard, but these two make me laugh every single day without fail!”
When I say those boys were my pride and joy, they absolutely were.
They were my only reason to feel both those emotions at that point in my life (and they still do now, even though I have lots of other reasons to feel good these days!)
Maybe that’s why I ended up being a coach - because I understood from an early age that your happiness in life is directly related to what you choose to focus on.
If I’d spent my time feeling sorry for myself that I couldn’t go to university or work abroad in cool bars like my friends, that I had no money and no hope of getting a well paid job for the foreseeable future, that I had a mountain of clothes to wash, that I was constantly tired from chasing around after little ones, that I couldn’t meet blokes without knowing I’d have to make that awkward confession that I had two children and watch them back away slowly, smiling sweetly and wishing me the best, then I’d have felt like shit.
I think every single person on the planet could come up with enough reasons to have a miserable life, even if it’s “I’m so rich and privileged, I’ve never needed to worry about a single thing in my life, and I feel like a failure because I’ve never had a chance to develop courage and character.”
As Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
What attitude are you starting your days with?
What makes you feel pride and joy?
Would viewing things from a different perspective help you feel better?