Who would have thought that I would use a topic in my blog about a feeling that my dog causes? Today, I was reminded of the difficulty of dealing with longing because of a decision we have to make concerning our dog.
This morning, I saw my wife crying, facing her computer while carrying our dog on her lap. She was crying silently, and when I asked her why, she sobbed even more and told me she was not willing to part with our dog. Since the possibility of conducting face-to-face training events has become higher, frequent travel is apparent. Hence the decision to leave our fur baby with my parents-in-law.
Upon seeing her emotional state, I thought of how I usually cope with the feeling of longing or missing someone or something. Because of my chosen career path, I had a lot of experiences in the matter.
My first ever experience was when I decided to leave my hometown to grow more in my career. I had to endure more than the difficulty of adapting to a new place – I had to take the longing I felt for my family and friends. Then, when I got married, I always had local and international travels because of my work and continuing education. Even just for a few days, being away from home never got easy. Getting over or dealing with such a feeling is never easy, but I found ways to endure. How?
- I remind myself of the why. Remembering why I need to be away or leave gives me the energy to proceed after feeling down from loneliness.
- I socialize and get to know the people in my new surroundings. Acquainting myself with the people around me helps in lightening my mood. It always helps to know that there are people I can talk with and help take my mind away from the feeling of longing.
- I usually develop a hobby that could give me joy. Entertaining myself with fun activities also helps me keep myself from constantly thinking of those that I miss.
- I ensure that communication is regular but not obsessive. Allotting time to update and check on loved ones really helps lessen the longing. Making sure that both parties agree on the timing of communications leaves little room for misunderstanding.
While missing people, things, or places is an indicator of your love and care for them, you need to know how to deal with it so that it would not interfere with your productivity.
This condition might not be serious for some, but it causes some people to give up on opportunities. Some cannot perform their work well. There are even those who cannot sleep nor eat well. So, I hope that the ways I enumerated here could help someone experiencing difficulty dealing with such feelings.
How about you? How do you deal with the feeling of longing?
(Photo by Andrew Neel)
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