Great exercise for anyone

I received a phone call from my ex-husband last night, asking if I would help him out. He was never much of a writer and asked if I would write something for him, about the 10 years we lived together in the Hokianga, ending in 1999, when I left him.

Paul rarely rings, and initially I was triggered, thinking something bad must have happened. The few phone calls I receive are generally to let me know of someone’s death, though once, the call was to ask me how I used to cook the turkeys. Apart from that, we have very little phone conversation. Once I realised this call was not the bearer of doom, I relaxed. I was somewhat amused that he would ask such a thing of me. It was kind of a character reference, but more about his community involvement at that time.

This is when I realised how many positive things that could be said about him. He was a hard worker, and a strong leader, undeniably, and turned that farm into a top breeding unit. He coached the kids’ rugby teams and ran the kids to their games in the weekends. He employed locally, creating another job for one of the fathers in the community. He made sure there was meat available to the locals cheaper than they would have bought it at the supermarket. There were lots of things.

I immediately thought how this exercise would be good for every divorcee. Instead of thinking of the negatives, think of all the positives of that person. After all, there must have been something that attracted us to this person in the first place. Imagine if everyone sat down and wrote a list of all the positive things they thought about the people they didn’t like. Just shifting the mindset into something positive would do wonders for the world. Imagine if the presidents did this as well, before they invaded another country. Instead of us being enemies, we could be friends. Imagine.

I wrote my letter and emailed it to my unsuspecting daughter-in-law, who has been tasked with the next stage of the operation, collating the various letters. We had a little joke together, that I could write two, the other with the exaggerated negatives instead, and hand Paul that one, but then decided against that idea. A lot of things could go wrong and we didn’t want anything to happen because of a silly prank.

I phoned Paul back and read him what I had written, just to make sure I had covered the key aspects of our time there. He was actually quite grateful and full of thanks, a side I haven’t seen for some time. Doing positive things can certainly be rewarding.