I was once truly in love with this gal. I was even prepared to move to a whole other continent to continue being with her. But my job couldn’t transfer just yet. We talked about ideas of maybe in another year or so. I was all for it.
But then, she found out she couldn’t bring her most beloved little dog with her. I wasn’t a big fan of the dog, personally, because it was defensive-agressive.
She raised this issue with her parents insisting they keep the dog, they said they’d abandon it, and so it came down to me. I could save this dog. I tried to figure anything out thst I could. But ultimately my building wouldn’t permit me to have the dog and my lease was too expensive to buy out of.
So she leaves. She goes to the other continent. And in the first three months, she buys a full sized husky for her apartment living situation.
Oh my god, I’ve never gone from love to absolute disdain faster in my life.
So for me, I suppose abandoning a living being was my absolute turn off.
Gratitude journals are amazing. I started maybe twelve years ago now. It’s helped me slow down and appreciate little things more often. I remember starting out my journal and looking for big events in my day.
I quickly learned that on bad days, I’d have to stretch to something like “I saw a cloud that looked like a puppy.” and that was when I started to look for smaller joys throughout the day. I also stopped depending on other people for joy.