Sunday, March 29, 2009

Understanding

Have you ever tried to explain something that you don't quite understand yourself? I try not to, it makes me feel stupid. Then I think of how many times I try to explain my feelings, which may or may not be tainted by hormones, when I can't exactly tell you why I feel that way in the first place. Yeah, stupid.

I guess that's why psychiatrists and psychotherapists were invented. Too many of us can't figure out why we feel a certain way, or how to change it, so people make their life out of figuring it out for us. If you know a good one, perhaps you can send them my way.

There is one feeling that doesn't need explanation, at least in my life. That is happiness. When I am happy, there is every reason in the world that I see for me to be happy. But do those reasons all go away when I'm having a hard day? No, in fact, in hind sight, none of those things that make your life truly happy are usually changed when you have a bad day. It is almost as if you've gone from looking at the big picture, say, an orange, to looking at the tiny bug that was on it - through a microscope.

I try to teach my children that no matter what happens around them, they choose the way they will react. I do this because they like to bug each other, and, when they do, they get the reaction that they want, so they do it again. Someday the lesson may sink in and they will realize that they don't have to get mad when their sister pokes them, and that will take the fun out of it all, and the poking will stop. But not today.

Have I learned that lesson? Perhaps when it comes to people who bug me, but what about taking every situation and looking at it in a positive way. Stepping away from the microscope and seeing all the goodness that remains, in spite of the badness that is overwhelming. Once I can do that, see things in that way, I know that my problems with explaining myself will be over. I can choose to be happy reguardless of what is going on around me.

Maybe someday, but not today.