Your breakfast toast isn’t just a carb. It might be an inspiration.
All it takes is “putting a happy face on my toast with squeeze jam,” Debra Grabowski of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, tells us.
That was considered one of the beautiful emails from readers after we requested them to share the ways and means they use to keep calm and carry on in the face of setbacks and gloom.
The impetus for this callout got here from an article we printed earlier this month. We requested a few of the attendees at the Skoll World Forum, devoted to “accelerat[ing] innovative solutions,” what they do to “keep calm and carry on” when issues get powerful.
We are grateful to all who responded. Here’s a sampling of their recommendation.
Look forward … method forward
Toast decorator Debra Grabowski additionally recommends glancing into the future: “When things go offline and it’s getting mentally hairy, I think: “Will this matter in 5 years?”
We should all be as smart as this 6th grader
“Hi Goats and Soda! I’m Natalie McGill, a sixth grader from Kansas City, Missouri, and that is how I keep calm and carry on. (Especially throughout our upcoming standardized testing season) I ask myself “What if this is getting me to where I need to be?”
“In my head I tell myself that this, this moment, right here, right now is getting me to where I need to be. I find it comforting to know that I am always getting closer to the moment I have been waiting for, or that I am already living in it.
With pen (or mobile phone) in hand
“Thank you for letting me chime in,” writes Laura Klarman of Herriman, Utah.
[Editor’s note: You’re welcome.]
Klarman has a three-step plan:
“Here’s how I keep calm:
- Handwritten thank you notes. My issues (and the world’s) appear farther away when I’ve a grateful coronary heart. It’s even higher after I can specific my gratitude and acknowledge somebody’s awesomeness.
- Keeping a working checklist in my notes part on my telephone of what makes me completely happy. I’ve titled it “Things I Love” and the newest additions are turning over a new month in the calendar (new beginnings!), discovering a new ebook collection and studying them so as, listening to music loud and hay bales all in a row.
- Connecting with the individuals and locations I like. Trying a new place to eat lunch with a buddy I have not seen in a whereas, going again to my mother or father’s home to go to and trying out what’s of their fridge (previous habits die laborious), touring to a new place with my household or being at house with my husband on a uncommon time without work when the children are at school.
A grandmother’s recommendation: ‘Listen extra, discuss much less’
Karen Lembo of Morristown, New Jersey, writes: “I try, very hard, to stay curious about people. It is not easy, and it is coming to me much too late in life, but I ‘listen more, talk less.’ My beloved grandmother, Nana Rete, would quote ‘God gave you two ears but only one mouth for a good reason, Karen.’ It took me years, but gosh I see how much more I learn daily by asking questions and then listening, REALLY listening.”
Lembo provides, “I keep calm by staying close to my grandchildren — their wisdom, joy, humor, love and kindness knows no bounds.”
Never underestimate laughter
With the cautionary notice that “Sometimes it works and other times, of course it does not,” Willow G. of Ohio recommends the therapeutic energy of laughter: “I grew up in a household where one parent was a nurse, and the other was a police officer, and we children were exposed to a great deal of dark humor.
“I realized at a younger age to giggle, and after I laughed, made an fascinating discovery: Laughter made me — and these round me — really feel higher.”
Perspective, perspective, perspective!
A reader writes: “I’m 75 and have a world of well being points, widespread to individuals my age. My mind is not as quick because it used to be. Neither is my stamina or my bodily situation. My spouse is a few years older than I’m and has much more well being points than I do.
“It would be all too easy to dwell on our problems or issues. What keeps me optimistic, positive, forward-looking is perspective. It is vital to keep things in perspective. No matter how things are for me, I understand that many, many people have it much worse off than I do. Perspective keeps me going. Instead of feeling sorry for myself and accomplishing nothing from that, I concentrate on helping others. I make sure, when I go out, that I have a smile on my face. I say ‘hello’ to perfect strangers. I compliment people if I see them wearing something interesting. If I see people in need on the street, even though I am on a very low fixed income, I give them something significant, at least $5. I post positive articles on Facebook and send encouraging messages to people I know. I am also very grateful for being alive. Being grateful also helps keep things in perspective.”
Finding a method to face ache
A reader writes: “I am an Alaska native from a small village of 300 people — very remote but amazing, My people and I have endured many types of losses mainly to suicide and hopelessness. In the last year I have lost 8 people in my life to various things and in a village of 300 these losses are felt.
“Two years in the past I misplaced two nephews. Those losses broke our household. What I did to ‘carry on’ was to shore up the different issues in my life that I may. Like growing constructive individuals round me, seeing my household after they got here to city, calling individuals, returning to church and telling individuals I’m struggling however not accepting pity. Just acknowledging that I used to be not okay gave me permission to not be okay.”
Stop, ask, count!
Tom Dorner of Detroit, Michigan, sagely suggests taking stock: “You could not resolve the drawback that day. But you are transferring ahead.
“First STOP and take a deep breath. Then sit down. Maybe count to 10, then ask yourself what is the problem. Be realistic and do what you can do. Ask for help and advice if you can. You may not solve the problem that day. But you are moving forward toward that goal. We can all take time to look at the world in a better light.”