📖 Book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff … and It's All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, PhD. Synopsis: Simple ways to keep little things from taking over your life. The book consists of 100 short articles -- we'll go through them week by week. This week’s # 31: Become Aware of Your Moods and Don't Allow Yourself to Be Fooled by the Low Ones Here's what you need to do: 1. Read it yourself, take time to reflect on it and make notes. 2. Join the live reading on Wednesday. We'll read and listen to the article together, line by line. 3. Share your thoughts. Keep your answer under 4 minutes. Be clear, and focus on expressing your ideas about the topic to practice real English speaking. No debates, just sharing thoughts. ***** Your own moods can be extremely deceptive. They can, and probably do, trick you into believing your life is far worse than it really is. When you're in a good mood, life looks great. You have perspective, common sense, and wisdom. In good moods, things don't feel so hard, problems seem less formidable and easier to solve. When you're in a good mood, relationships seem to flow and communication is easy. If you are criticized, you take it in stride. On the contrary, when you're in a bad mood, life looks unbearably serious and difficult. You have very little perspective. You take things personally and often misinterpret those around you, as you impute malignant motives into their actions. Here's the catch: People don't realize their moods are always on the run. They think instead that their lives have suddenly become worse in the past day, or even the last hour. So, someone who is in a good mood in the morning might love his wife, his job, and his car. He is probably optimistic about his future and feels grateful about his past. But by late afternoon, if his mood is bad, he claims he hates his job, thinks of his wife as a nuisance, thinks his car is a junker, and believes he's going nowhere in his career. If you ask him about his childhood while he's in a low mood, he'll probably tell you it was extremely difficult. He will probably blame his parents for his current plight.

Can you believe it? Spring has just arrived in the Northeast. I am so... ready for it. I just bought some flowers from the Home Depot today.