“If there’s no family drama in your family, especially around the holidays, everyone else agrees that the problem is you and there’s no point even talking about it anymore.”
(I don’t necessarily agree with this, but much like, “There’s always one weirdo on the bus; if you don’t see them, it’s you!”, it’s something worth considering from time to time.)
Sometimes you just don’t know how much you are influencing someone else’s life. Sometimes you find out a few simple words of encouragement to an acquaintance meant more to them than you could have possibly imagined, and sometimes you are disrupting someone’s rest because you will not stop opening and closing your damn door!
While I’m out biking I sometimes think, “I shouldn’t expect to be as good at this as when I was a kid.”
And I really shouldn’t.
Because when I was a kid my grandmother could not only outride me, she could easily outride me!
(Riding every day on a one-speed bike when you live in hill country will help you do that.)
Today I was out biking and found myself thinking, “I remember going faster on a bike when I was a kid.”
Before I let myself get down on myself about that thought though, I also remembered that where I rode a bike as a kid had actual hills to ride down.
The other day I was watching someone talk about why battle casualties were so high in World War I compared to prior wars. In their opinion, one of the main reasons was because there was a general feeling that the battle tactics being used were “tested, tried, and true,” and therefore if they failed, it was “obviously” the fault of the soldiers, so there was no need to change the tactics. If the soldiers were only “stronger, braver and truer,” the tactics would “naturally” work the next time.
Or the next time . . . or the time after that . . . or maybe the time after that . . . but eventually!
Person 1: I look so terrible in this picture.
Person 2: You look fine! Now if you want to see a terrible picture, check this out.
Person 1: That’s a great picture of you!
Both Together: (thinking) Why can’t this person see the obvious?
The funniest headline I read today was, “It’s the end the world (again).”
I absolutely understand the pessimism about the current age, especially in those younger than me. I likewise understand why me saying, “It may not be as bad as you think,” is viewed with some disdain because *I* would have viewed that sentiment with disdain when I was younger too.
But here’s the thing . . .
If I’d been right in my thinking about how bad things were when I was younger, we’d all be dead now.
There are times I weary of people bemoaning how “times have changed, and not for the better, because in my day we rode in cars without seatbelts, didn’t wear safety helmets and the like, and we survived!”
Which is true, as far as it goes, but I think most of us went to at least one funeral for those who didn’t.
As I continue to teach my son about the values of patience and perspective, naturally I find my own patience and perspective being regularly tested, and this week has been a particularly challenging one on that front.
So much so that after numerous setbacks I found myself factiously thinking, “Maybe I need to aspire to become a functioning alcoholic because then at least I’d be functioning!”
Candles & Curses 