navel gazing

nobody is going to want to read this, (even if they could make sense of it), but i'm feeling compelled this morning to write it, so please go ahead and skip to the next one. if you're wondering, like all the rest of the stuff here, it's being written to myself, so that i might read it again some other time and (hopefully) take some of it to heart. i've got a long way to go.

i have come to believe we have to will ourselves to be happy, and will ourselves to trust others as the way to that happiness. (and accept them for who they are). the tricky part is when others will let us down, and come up short of our wishes and expectations. many resort to anthropomorphizing their frustrations into the same people they perceived to be the source of their frustrations, but there's no salvation there, since we can only control our frustration, not the "shortcomings" of those around us, which aren't shortcomings at all, but simply just who they are. (at least that's the way I did/do it).

so who's the one coming up short? the person who simply is who they are, doing simply just what they do, or the rest of us who are projecting onto those others our expectations for them to be people who really don't exist? the world has no shortage of folks who feel aggrieved by the unfairnesses that puts them into their perceived state of unhappiness. i can easily see why it ISN'T fair. it's not. but there's no future in believing the solution to be beyond any control. if you believe the cops are always going to bust you--guess what, they are. illegal aliens illegally immigrate. terrorists terrorize. pirates pirate. criminals commit crimes. my ex was always going to complain that I wasn't doing it right for her, that's for sure. (does that prove me the marital criminal, i wonder?) so you have to decide what to do next that's different from what got you into your little corner of misery, regardless of how unfair it is, and how much extra effort it's going to be for you than it should be. i tried to fix my marriage, but couldn't, so i didn't end up here any other way than by accident, but i'm still amazed at how hard it is for all of us to break out of those walls we perceive to be surrounding us.

they're stronger than any real ones could be, that's for sure.

and the solution isn't in the SOLUTION, per se. the unfairnesses of the world may very well be beyond solving. if the sun explodes tomorrow, what could we really have done about it? all we can do is resolve our cheerful demeanors, and our devotion to others because it's the right thing to do. maybe they'll repay our kindnesses to us, and maybe they'll repay them forward, and maybe they'll always need more than they can give. so do we allow ourselves to be unhappy and get into the german grandmother thing and turn it into a contest of wills? (the grandmother always wins, in case you were wondering, and none of us ever get to be the grandmother--it's one of newton's laws, i think). or do we become so small that we cannot accept the likely fact that we may very well be receiving more than we can possibly give back?

my fear is to live forever in that bizarre state of selfish denial. my bliss is to reach those moments when i'm giving of myself without concern about anything else.