I always enjoy positive feedback. It gives me a boost and encourages me to keep going. It’s uplifting when someone compliments my hair, acknowledges my efforts at work, or sends me an encouraging text message. However, that good feeling doesn’t last long. 😔 Even achievements that require years of hard work only provide a sense accomplishment for a moment, and then the elation tends to fade away rather quickly.
And then there are the moments when, for example, someone disapproves of a decision I made, cuts me off in traffic, or fails to return my cheerful greeting. Such situations can haunt me for hours, days, even years.
Happiness is very short-lived. Kinda like copernicium. That’s a chemical element and it has a half-life of approximately 30 seconds.
Negative emotions are a bit like xenon. That’s also a chemical element and it has a half-life of 18 sextillion years. (Yes. SEXTILLION! I didn’t even know that number existed. 😂)
I wish it were the other way around, that the half-life’s timespan would be in favor of good feelings. I mean, seriously! We eradicated smallpox, invented the wheel, and made it to the moon! Wouldn’t it be nice if we could apply some of that ingenuity to get those half-life numbers reversed? 🙃
Brigitte K. Schneider
aka Ms. Joy Times a Gazillion-Million-Triple-Googol
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