A five-year-old girl, living with her family at a homeless shelter, was approached by a well-meaning adult who leaned down and lovingly commented to her, “I’m so sorry you don’t have a home.” The little girl said, “Oh we have a home, we just don’t have a house to put it in.”
Somewhere along the line, in her short five years on earth, that little girl learned how to acknowledge the good in her life while also accepting that things weren’t exactly perfect.
PBS recently began a rebroadcast of the 3-part documentary, “This Emotional Life.” The segments are thought-provoking with quite a few insightful comments and observations regarding ways one can search for and discover inner happiness.
Whether reading self-help books, going on retreats or to seminars, or doing some contemplative navel-gazing (to use one of my favorite words: a bit of omphaloskepis), as it seems Elizabeth Gilbert did in her book, Eat, Pray, Love, it’s important to keep searching for our own answers to personal happiness. It surely doesn’t come from “things” and we can’t expect others to supply it for us.
In previous blog postings I’ve written of epiphanies regarding the ways in which my choices negatively impacted my younger life as well as some of the literally time-tested remedies I’ve been using for the past several decades—remedies which are, for me, so simple yet so effective.
Okay, that’s the “mental” part, the part that’s not too difficult to employ once we use the tools we’ve learned in the search. Not too difficult until, for example, physical problems come to the fore.
When physical challenges present themselves—when days and weeks seem bloated with doctor appointments; when we tire from a schedule filled with dates for probings and x-rays; when this remedy or that prescription fails to alleviate the problem—it’s really tough to see a sunny side of life.
The meme in this regard seems to be along the lines of “buck up,” “look on the bright side,” “think and talk positive,” etc., etc.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s 100% okay to spend some time kvetching, griping and complaining. Not all the time, of course. That would strain the bonds and pollute the wells of love and compassion friends and family feel for us. Just enough so that those who care about us know we're experiencing some tough times.
Fortunately, I’m not dealing with any untoward health issues at the moment. However, in the past few months one or two dear friends have been in the throes of ongoing, undiagnosed physical pain.
The other day one of these friends said she was really very tired of having to put on a happy face and use the “proper” words when others ask her how she’s doing.
For what it’s worth, I gave her my firm approval to engage in a bit of “gripe and wallow” now and then. She’ll continue with her yoga and meditation exercises, she’ll continue the round after round of doctor visits and yes, she’ll continue to acknowledge all the gifts in her life. It’s just that she will give up the struggle it has been to keep that “stiff upper lip.” Let the healing begin!
Even though I firmly believe attitude has a great effect on the quality of an individual's life, I also think it's okay to allow ourselves, now and then, to muck about in a bit of “why me?”
