A Chic Paris Lockdown – Part 2: Day 20 – What Do We Talk About?
November 22, 2020
Fiona Ferris titled Day 20 “Be a bright spark” in her book, 30 Chic Days At Home. She makes a concentrated effort to focus on the positive in her day. She wants to bring cheer to herself and to the people around her.
It seems natural that we would want to feel cheerful as a matter of course. It’s simply more fun to be around cheerful people than gloomy people. (And we have to be around ourselves 24-7.) Yet, have you ever been around someone who seems to positively delight in gloom and doom? That person who rushes to tell you all about the most recent shocking or tragic news story? It’s like being attacked by an energy vampire – in just a few minutes, they steal all your regular daily pep and joy with a few “helpful” stories of tragedy, injustice or outrage. I’m never quite sure how to respond because, in truth, tragedies, injustices and outrages do occur (far too often in this life.) However, when an acquaintance rushes to tell me all about the latest big news political corruption story upon seeing me unexpecedly at the grocery store, I can do absolutely nothing about the corruption or tragedy or whatever. All this person has accomplished was to spread a feeling of stress and negativity. I usually try to slip away quickly and hang on to whatever I can of my (previous) happy mood.
I would call the above “gloom and doom” example the exact opposite of Fiona’s “bright spark” idea. It is so cheering and fun to run into people who are in good spirits and burbling over with positive topics to talk about. (I just realized that that is one of the reasons I enjoy Fiona’s books so much – she is upbeat and positive focused. I feel light-hearted and more energetic after I spend time in one of her books.) Let’s all grab hold of the “bright spark” idea and make it a manifesto. Whenever possible in our casual conversations out in the world, let’s find something upbeat to talk about. Not only do we give a positive energy to the people we are around, we also give ourselves positive energy (we hear and are affected by our words, too!)
