I am finally arriving at the revelation that other people do
when they face huge obstacles. Many people don’t even realize what it is and I
have been looking deep inside of myself trying to figure out how a person can
be the happiest they have ever been, while simultaneously trudging through one
of the hardest things they have ever been through.
My ah-ha! moment came to me after scrolling through a newsfeed of ridiculously
petty complaints and comparisons. Some people are just complainers by nature,
and I know a few of those. The “one-uppers” and the “my life is harder
therefore I’m stronger” competitors. The
people that think they have to work harder to achieve what the rest of the
world apparently just gets handed to them.
It is funny to me that in every family dynamic and in the
world at large, most people think they work harder than everybody else. It’s
the classic husband and wife, both doing separate chores, both thinking “I do
everything around here.”
When really, they both work hard.
We all work hard.
The trick is that when you stop worrying about what
everybody else is doing, when you stop comparing and focusing on your
differences, the work doesn’t seem as hard.
It’s too easy to face a problem and think “nobody else I
know has to deal with this. It’s not fair.”
I assure you that everybody else has once battled a demon
that you will never face.
We need to stop worrying about fair.
This is how I can find a best friend in my ex-husband, even
when I am raising our kids alone.
This is how I can feel PURE joy instead of jealousy when my
friends welcome their perfect healthy babies to the world.
This is how I can laugh at the people who dare try to tell
me that I don’t work as hard as them, just because I don’t have a “real” job
and how I can relax and enjoy this time with my babies,
knowing that if I don’t get called back after submitting yet another resume,
that I will just submit more and more until I find what I am looking for, but
that until then…I am right where I belong.
This is how that green eyed monster stays locked up. I will
not be sitting down to a pity party with that creature any time soon. Instead,
I am slowly starving it and saving my scraps for a garden of hope, security,
joy, pride, and confidence.
Fair? Fair can suck it. Fair isn’t even real. It never has
been. Fair is just a word, setting us up
for unrealistic expectations. I am letting go of expectations. Not in a bitter
way, but as a serene and peaceful realization that if I had nothing to compare
it to, this would all feel easy and I would enjoy it more.
I am enjoying it more.
It’s ok to wish. It’s ok to vent and to feel. To get angry
when things suck…and I do
but when I stop and force myself to contemplate why I feel that way, I feel that way
less.
When Max spits alllll of his medicine out in protest, am I
sad because I have to repeat the dose or because most babies don’t have to get
medicine shoved down their throats three times a day? I refuse to let it be the
latter, and when left with the original dilemma…that hardly seems like
something worth worrying about.
There is no room for jealousy in this life. There is no room
for comparisons, resentment, or worrying about fair.
Put the bitterness in your pocket and save it for something
worth spending it on.
Let it go. Be happy. Stop worrying about what your neighbors
are doing. Stop worrying about fair.
