It has been a long couple of weeks in Walton World, and I am ready for a revived spirit. One too many times, the dreaded words, "It could have been worse," have been uttered, and I am starting to feel unreasonable in my response. But ultimately, I know my reaction to what is going on in my life is up to me, and I have to be the one to set the tone for how I feel about my own experiences. Easier said than done. But eminently possible. Even, on a good day, fairly manageable.
So today, a lovely, sunny Saturday filled with promise, I mostly chose to make it a good day. I chose joy. I chose to smile, whether I felt like it or not. I laughed at my dogs and their silly antics. I felt cheerful when looking at the flowers my husband chose to give me earlier this week. I took a nap because I felt like indulging my baser instincts. And I am not going to feel guilty about it, because I needed that time for me.
Americans are stressed out people. Although we have a world wide reputation for being easy going and simple and free flowing, in fact, we work harder and longer than people in most other industrialized nations. We take far less vacation time, we don't take sick leave, and we are available to everyone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Worse yet, we feel guilty about everything, all the time. We never seem to get it right, nothing is ever sufficient, we are never done.
This is not a healthy way to live. Millions of dollars of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs and therapy and self-medication give evidence to the lie that we are happy and fulfilled. (Don't get me wrong. I am a proud, flag carrying member of the crowd that believes in better living through pharmaceutical enhancement, where needed. I might not be here if it weren't for Prozac and Dr. Miller.) But we do have a choice about how we live our lives. We are not forced to see the glass as half empty if we really want to see it half full.
I routinely, to the great annoyance of my closest relatives, run the gas tank down to the very last drop. I suppose it is laziness that inhibits me from filling the gas tank when I really should, although I think the cold winter air has something to do with my reluctance, as well. But it is, in its own way, an optimistic alternative take on the glass half empty model.
If I am so confident that there is enough gas to get me where I want to go when the needle is edging below E, why am I so easily persuaded life is grim if my glass is half full? That is perplexing, really, because experience tells me that the needle on E is a real risk, while the small thing that has upset my personal apple cart is probably just another swallow from the glass that will barely be perceptible from the outside looking in.
Small but pertinent tangent here. I recently did go too far, literally, and ran out of gas with a very tired and pregnant daughter in the car, who was not one bit amused by the situation, which was dangerous in ways you don't even want to think about. But even that ultimately worked out, because we were a block from her house, and across the street from the gas station. While it could have happened any number of worse places, which would have been a lot more trouble, it all was resolved pretty expeditiously. Which is actually a good life lesson.
Life is what you make of it, more often than not. How we see our lives playing out is as much a function of our own perspective as it is of how events actually occur. While there are catastrophic occurrences on occasion - death, severe illness, financial ruin - usually the setbacks are merely an inconvenience in an otherwise well ordered life. Even the bigger stuff, health scares, sick pets, job loss, divorce, eventually resolve themselves and life goes on more or less the same. So why do I (and most people) allow myself to get so worked up over something which I cannot really control and which will work itself out sooner or later?
I am not, by nature, an optimist, although I'm not really a pessimist, either. I tend to think, in the long run, that things will work out somehow, even if they are a mess at any given moment. But I am vulnerable to the mood swing, capable of falling into a depressed condition given half a chance, even thought it has never been to my benefit when I find myself on the wrong end of the bad attitude.
My mother is the Queen of the Optimists, always sure that everything will work out, calmly confident that in the end, life will sort itself out and everything will be as it should be. Her 88 years have not all been fun, but somehow, she manages to rise above it and see life as a more or less happy adventure. I need more of her positive perspective in my own life, obviously.
I feel a need to happy up, to be more positive, to reach for the joy. God put me in this world to live life, not to endure life, and I am squandering his gift when I do less. I need to sing more, complain less, appreciate profoundly, and acknowledge with gratitude how very blessed I have been. I have everything that really matters in the human realm, and then some.
That splashing sound I hear is not sloshing from a drink half gone but the glass overflowing. Happy Saturday!
