A few days ago I cleaned the door on my washing machine. I honestly think that this is the best thing I have ever done. Every time I go past it, it catches my eye and it’s as though the washing machine pays me a compliment. “Well done,” it says. If it could, it would tip its hat or nod. Actually, here’s a good question, if your washing machine was a person would it be male or female? I know people usually ask this kind of thing about their cars, but hey.

I am ever astounded at where I find satisfaction. I always thought it would be in a really great job, something where I was saving the world on a regular basis, but apparently, no. You can find meaning in the nice, clean glass of your washing machine door. There it is folks. Who would have thought it.

The washing machine in question is currently doing a load. It’s on its last rinse cycle, and I’m enjoying the sound it’s making. I just walked past it and glanced in. You know, just to check on how things were doing. It reminded me of how as a kid I used to be mesmerised by our washing machine. It totally fascinated me. There’s something about spinning that I literally cannot take my eyes off. I think it’s because it’s continually moving but going nowhere.

You know, if ever I were to take up meditation, I would without a doubt use a washing machine as an aid. It totally absorbs my attention. In fact, just now I happened to look in, and found myself saying, “Wow, this is better than TV.” A bunch of clothes in a metal drum, soaked in soapy water — better than TV. What does that say about me? I think probably that I occupy some position on the autistic spectrum. Well, I am very proud to occupy whatever position I may occupy.

(By the way, isn’t it rotten that we label this on the same scale as a disorder? It totally stinks. By rights, “male” is a position on the autistic spectrum. So is “genius”. Can’t wait for society to wake up and let people be who they are without trying to cut them down or make everyone the same.)

All this has made me think about being a child, and about the bits of me that I have very stubbornly never allowed to grow up. For example, I still really like using an umbrella. I have defended this excitement, viciously and heroically, from all attempts at maturity. Why would anyone want to lose that? It makes rain fun!

So here is my musing: small pleasures have a surprisingly big impact on your happiness.

It’s such a massive cliche, but it’s really true. It’s just about being positive, but pro-actively positive.

I’m a natural depressive and pessimist. That means, I immediately spot the problems in ideas, the costs, the downsides, the ways it won’t work, the reasons why we shouldn’t do it.

Let me tell you, if you’re the same type of person, that being loyal and faithful to that side of your character will close down your life. You will get smaller and smaller till one day you realise that you’ve no life to speak of. Better for that revelation to come when you’re still young than when you get old, believe me!

The trick is to keep building positivity. Invest into a habit of positive thinking. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. The more you train your brain to be positive, the more opportunities you’ll see for good things. Sometimes the trouble isn’t that there’s not any opportunities, it’s that you see them all as problems. Problems are opportunities, it just depends what glasses you have on: the rose-tinted ones or the poo-tinted ones (remember diamonds and dog turds?).

Poo-tinted glasses see the turd. Rose-tinted glasses see the diamond. I guess in “reality” both the diamond and the turd are there. In one sense, pessimists and optimists are both realists. It’s not so much a case of seeing problems/opportunities, it’s more a case of whether you value the benefits enough to pay the costs. If you’re starting a business, do you value it enough to go through the hard times setting it up? If you really want to build your own house, do you value that dream enough to go through budget problems and design flaws and materials running out, etc. Pessimists don’t care enough about the dream to go through all the hard work.

Building optimism is hard work, but the more you do it, the easier it gets: the less unpleasant it is to say yes to things you can’t be bothered to do and the more you enjoy the process of getting there.

I had a pretty miserable time as a student. I was expecting it to open up my life, give me direction, answer all the questions I had, like what I was going to do with my life, who I was, etc. etc.

It didn’t!

Instead I found independence difficult, even though it was that funny kind of semi-independence where you went home at the holidays. I reckon most people don’t get a black-and-white “leaving home” experience, you do it (psychologically at least) over some years, I guess. But anyway. I found my student experience quite disappointing. I didn’t feel like I made the lifelong friends I had hoped I would make. I felt I’d left them all behind back at home. (In reality, I did make them, it’s just you don’t recognise them as such when you’re right there!) I didn’t get any epiphany moments as to what my career would be.

My student experience was one of confusing, half-formed feelings that melded into one another. It was hard to tell one apart from the other, despite my most strenuous analytic efforts.

And it just occurred to me, meeting up with a friend from those days, that not a lot has changed. Those feelings are still all mixed up and confusing, four years on. Now, there’s just more distance between me and them. I can look at them as an observer. It’s like visiting a museum.

I still have those same questions, too, but they’re not the menacing monsters they used to be. I have no idea how to answer, “Who am I?” but I’ve realised it’s not a question you can answer in words. Or not completely at least. Plus “I” is something that keeps changing, anyway.

Life is messy and refuses to fit into the boxes I try to put it in. But I like that. I guess I have always liked it, but back then “like” seemed to have a whole lot more pain in it. I don’t know. I haven’t lived life perfectly, but then no-one has, and I don’t believe that anyone really knows what “perfect” is anyway, so it’s effectively a meaningless question, but it’s funny how those questions we can’t quite answer are the most important. And enjoyable to try to answer! You have to answer them not just with thoughts thought, or words spoken (or written) but with life lived. You spell them out with the trail of the life you lead.

Imagine a harbour when the tide is high. It’s full of water, and the boats are afloat. The sun sparkles on the sea, and everything is fine. Now picture the tide going out. The boats sink and sink until they lie at the bottom of the harbour, tilted to one side. There’s a bad smell. The walls are covered with seaweed and slime, making it difficult or impossible to climb out.

Mood swings are just like this. When you’re happy, the world looks great, full of promise and wonder. When you’re down, everything is horrible — abject misery, and doom, doom, doooooooom. I’m being dramatic but actually it’s not far off how you can feel. I’m not just talking about feeling a bit blue, I mean the long term down-ness that can affect people (read: me).

Some people are less swayed by their emotions than others, and it’s certainly wise to make every effort to be consistent regardless of your feelings. But for those of us still on the journey, how do you keep going when the harbour’s empty? I ask myself, what’s at the bottom of the harbour?

In amongst the rusty nails and seaweed and dead fish, I find a few gems. There’s one called, “I am not a victim”. I may not be in total control of a situation, but I can change the way I see it. For example, I can choose whether I see a long day in a job that I am not passionate about as another example of how the world is rubbish, or I can choose to see it as an investment in the bank of “Time to start following your dreams!”

They don’t even have to be particularly clever, these gems at the bottom of your harbour. Another of mine is, “Life is good and it’s worth carrying on.” You know, when you feel fine, it’s embarrassing to remember that sometimes you need a bit of a boost. But when the tide is out, it’s good to remember that things didn’t always look this way, and that they will get better.

I also have a picture of my dreams. Your dreams are like mountain-tops, a long journey away, but there all the same. When you’re at the bottom of the harbour it’s not always easy to see those mountain tops, because they’re obscured by the walls. Looking at the photo isn’t as good as looking at the real thing, but it reminds you that you still have dreams, even if they seem impossible at the moment.

I keep photos of my family there too. And there’s a laptop connected to all the blogs I read! And of course there’s always prayer. It’s inestimably helpful to have God knocking around in your desperation. (Although he does have a habit of turning seemingly bottomless pits into mere hard work, so watch out for that if you were holding out for a pity party.)

What’s at the bottom of your harbour? Make sure that amongst all the detritus and debris that life strews across your path, there’s something that you put there, too. Otherwise it’s just rusty nails, seaweed and dead fish …

Today I woke up to my housemate’s alarm, which happened to be opera. I noticed how the tune grabbed a hold of me, and I thought how music hadn’t affected me like that in a long time. I started thinking how I’m finding it really hard to be interested in things at the moment: things just seem really boring.

So, over breakfast, I decided that if I can’t make myself feel any better, I might as well try to brighten other people’s days. I’ve decided to make 5 people feel encouraged today.

And you know what? Life doesn’t look so bad any more.

Something I’m learning at the moment is that life is not all about accomplishing something. It’s vital to have dreams, but don’t think that just because you don’t see the dreams right now, that life isn’t happening. Life does not start when you finally get your dreams — it started when you were born!

Living with the thought that only when your dreams are here, will life start to mean something is a form of pessimism. It completely discounts the treasures around you right now.

Let’s imagine you want to become financially independent from your employer. What a great dream — finally you can stop working for money, and work because you love what you do, or because you know that you’re contributing something. Let’s say that there are six stages you need to go through before you get there. These stages might last a year each. If you see them as a hassle, “dead” time you have to trudge through before you get to your goal, you’ve just let six years of your life slide by.

You can also apply this retroactively. If you find yourself asking, ‘What have I done with my life?’ don’t be too quick to answer negatively. What about the people you’ve loved? Even loving one person is enough. A life can be turned around through a single sentence of encouragement. You just don’t know who sees you as a source of encouragement and inspiration. And it’s not just people “below” you (i.e. those not as far along the path as you). Leaders are inspired by their followers, as much as the dream they’re following. Leaders see followers and are amazed and moved that people value them enough to follow them.

So never look down your nose at where you are right now. You’re learning lessons. Remember, the summit is just a tiny part of the mountain you’re currently climbing.

One of the most freeing things to realise is that life can be crap sometimes. That’s just the way it is. You’re not doing anything wrong. No amount of direction, resolve, discipline or whatever is going to change that. Some parts of your life will always be … crap. The Crap Factor is here to stay.

Normally this thought would make me question the value of life — surely something so “defective” must be worthless, right? But actually instead of letting that make me depressed, it’s left me feeling hopeful, happy and more positive and determined about the future than I have ever been before.

I have a print out of something written by Mother Teresa about life that a friend gave me. It may not have been Mother Teresa that wrote it, but who cares, it’s actually really good. I never thought that I would “fall” for one of these quote things, but it’s actually really grabbed me.

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.

I’ve been thinking about the double nature of life — how it can be both brilliant and awful. I have to confess, the whole optimism thing is a little new to me. I have long been a pessimist but I’m practising optimism, and I’m finding it sticks! I never thought it would, but all it takes is practise apparently. Did you know, it’s easier to be an optimist than it is to be a pessimist. You go through the same struggles, the same problems, so you might as well enjoy yourself while you’re having such a miserable time :)

So, the title of this post comes from my thinking about life, and how it’s good but it hurts sometimes. It’s like a diamond, covered in dog turd. Imagine that! I came up with that image all by myself!

It struck me that there’s diamonds all over the place, but frequently they’re covered in dog turd. A pessimist sees only the turd. But it’s a fool that passes up the diamond just because they don’t want to get turd on their hands.

Sorry, that was going to be the last paragraph, but I just couldn’t help myself. I had to comment on how funny that image is! Diamonds covered in dog turd!

Well. I’ll leave it with you.