Look for One Good Thing

For all you crazy caregivers out there, here’s a new word for you: Declinism. It means you believe the future is going to be worse than the past.

It’s hard not to be a declinist (see there, another new word) when you’re in the middle of a challenging caregiving situation.

However, the absurdity of caregiving is that we often think in a pervertedly optimistic way, “I know it can’t get worse than this!” And then, it is.

When that sort of thing happens often enough, we start to get negative, depressed, and overwhelmed.

One of the keys to pushing declines away is to look for one good thing that will happen tomorrow. It can be anything from seeing a friend, having a good meal, hearing a favorite song (don’t look for it to happen as an accident, play the doggone song!!!), taking a walk, hugging a child or grandchild, seeing a picture with a positive memory or, in fact, simply calling up a number of positive memories.

Unfortunately, caregiving is a life experience that often leads us to declinism. It’s up to us as caregivers to fight off that slide downward with positive thoughts, decisions, and actions.