October 30, 2008
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It occurred to me tonight. Again. Every so often, my brain finds it necessary to remind me that:
a) I have a great life.
b) I should stop my bitchin’.
c) My life could be even better.It’s not really a big ego talking here; I simply have a life (like many, many others) that should probably not be complained about at all. I have a boyfriend who “gets me” more than I get myself, a funny-while-dysfunctional family, tons of crazy friends both far and near, a posse on campus who I adore, and basically the best job in a fairly cool area of the country. I don’t live paycheck to paycheck, I have a kick-ass/reliable/cute vehicle, and I have no major health issues.
I get up every morning to The Today Show and giggle at Matt Lauer over yummy coffee. I have a mini-mall as a closet. I live five minutes from my job, and when I get there, people are typically happy to see me whether they are students or faculty or staff. Even the awesome custodian, Ben, smiles at me every time he sees me. I work on cool projects, teach using cool methods, and even have a very cool officemate in a roomy, sunny office. My bosses are respectful people I can jokingly call “troublemakers,” and one of the problems in my classroom is getting students to share what they have to say one-at-a-time instead of all at once.
While I want to become completely and totally optimistic and live each day to the absolute fullest, a small part of me thinks, “Man, the minute I get too excited about life… something bad’s gonna happen.” Yet, with that thought too, I wonder… is that what keeps us all from really diving in each day and just enjoying the heck out of everything? Fear that it’ll all fall apart, so it’s better to just complain all day everyday because there will always be something to complain about? I dunno.
Comments (5)
Hmm, good point. I do feel that way sometimes, that if I get too optimistic, something horrible is going to happen. I do try to keep an upbeat outlook about things though.
@wherethefishlives - Precisely. Good to know I’m not alone with those thoughts.
If we focus on trying to see the ‘big picture’ all the time, we forget how much we’re blessed. Thanks for reminding me.
@Evowookiee - Yea. And I don’t look at my overall life much… I focus on “oh, man, I have to do THAT today” and it’s like something so little. Or people will do something small to annoy me, and I’ll focus on that when he/she is a fabulous person…
Reminds me of that one activity some prof did that I heard of once. Taking a jar… filling it with huge rocks first then stones and then sand. The rocks are the most important things, but they need to come first into the jar or they won’t fit if the sand goes first… etc…
The most part of what you declare interferes with my own point of view, I ruminate thus
here