shutting down

People do not “make us miserable.” We choose to be miserable. The immediate emotion that arises after the action of another person may be automatic and beyond your control, but what you do with that emotion is your decision.

As i'm getting older, I've realised the above statement to be more & more true...maybe thats why i chose to study Psychology; coz i'm really self-aware & i like to think beyond the superficial...

Tonight i had several incidents which has made me realise once you've shut yourself down from people, its hard to open up again....despite conscious efforts to dig up stuff that is common ground, theres sumin thats missing....even though theres not been any bad fall out or hard feelings, i guess time can wash alot of things away - including good things/feelings!

So linking back to the above quote/statement....i guess ive chosen to stop expecting anything from certain people. Coz no expectation means no risk of disappointment. Not that it means our relationship is now tense or whatever, its just that the reality of it is, things have changed so i have two options 1) wallow about it, build up resentment etc or 2) accept that this is reality & move on!

I think as humans, we are too prone to thinking of how things "used to be", so thats the measure used for comparison of the present.....especially in cases where the present is a deterioration of what used to be......but yet if you met that person & they are as they are now, you'd either like it or you wudnt! Whereas people who have changed, you seem to linger on2 what used-to-be & in a sense it becomes unfair(?) on the other person coz you 'expect' them to be as they were.....& when they're not, you feel disappointed.....

I read somewhere that instead of thinking of how things used to be, we ought to embrace changes & accept friends for who they are now, with their current circumstances etc....but thats often a really difficult thing to do coz it requires conscious effort....

I guess i've changed too.......i'm definitely not the young naive girl i was a few years ago!

But its making me question whether comatosed relationships are resuscitatable....