Musings on choices
More thoughts on how I'm learning to be an adult.
"Life as it is. I've lived for over forty years, and I've seen life as it is. Pain! Misery! Cruelty beyond belief! I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creatures: moans of pain from bundles in the street. (snip) And life itself seems lunatic! Who knows where madness lies?! Perhaps to be too practical is madness! To surrender dreams, this may be madness! To seek treasure where there is only trash! Too much sanity may be madness! But maddest of all is to see life as it is, and not as how it should be!" ~Man of La Mancha
Now that I'm over 40, this is more true than ever. Two years ago I realized I was no longer the happy person I had tried to be, with thanks to those who pointed out how I had been changing. I had become accustomed to living life as it is, and commiserating with people that are determined to experience every negative emotion and situation that comes their way. It is easy to focus on the negative, with the self delusion that one is improving oneself by seeing all the flaws around us clearly.
I say delusion because I really don't believe this is the case. I could dwell on the truth that every single person has let me down in a large or small ways over time and association. I could admit that I have been overly sensitive, and hurt many times. Or I could open my arms wide and embrace the humanity of those I love and care for, and allow them to be as flawed and human as I am.
I believe that it is more important to laugh than to cry. I believe it is more important to forgive than to allow myself to be insulted. I believe that it is more important to be the rag that wipes the dust off the traveler's boot as they come inside my metaphorical home than it is to be the outraged homeowner when someone tracks in mud flung in the outside world. I clearly also love metaphors way too much.
I believe in serious introspection. And I believe that there are times to throw it away and dance in the moment when they come. I believe it is important to hold my fellow dancers up when they stagger, and encourage them to find the steps to their hearts' homes. Life as it is will always provide sharp stones in the road, that will bruise our feet. I choose to sigh then laugh at my sore feet, and try to find companions with similar feet to sit together in a stream where the cool water can wash it away.
It is easy to empathize, and sometimes I think people don't know how deeply I really do understand their negative moments. But I choose not to suffer from the indignities that life as it is heaps upon us, and can only hope they will as well. It is a path, not a destination, to choose to be a happy person, as one does not just wake up one day to discover one is happy forever after, amen. Every moment, every stumble, one has to choose joy, forgiveness, and love. And I know I will forget sometimes, and grouse my way through a moment. I only vow to struggle to let the grousing and grumbling go as often as possible, and live for the next moment rather than being harmed by the last.
Sooner or later, one has to let go all the pain and unhappiness of the past, and say proudly to the universe that I am more than the sum of my experiences. It is not proving to be the easiest set of choices I've ever made, this business of always trying to choose happiness, but I think it's the most fulfilling. It's certainly better than carrying around anger, bitterness, hurt, and pain.
And now I have to decide if sending these musings to my Niece would make a difference or not.