In the Company of Unhappy People


"May we never let the things we DON'T have or CAN'T have or SHOULDN'T have, spoil our enjoyment of all that we HAVE." 


       This is something I would love some people in (or out of) my life to learn.  I don't know if it is my fate to have had more than my share of unhappy people play significant roles in my life. Almost daily, in the past, I would be caught in the trap of having to listen to how life has treated them unfairly. My role in these talks,  it seemed, was to point out to them how they would feel better if they saw the bigger picture of their lives... how they only seemed to focus on the dark and bleak parts and glossed over the brighter splashes of color during their day. If I succeeded at all in letting them see what was promising about their lives, I seldom got any clue.


         Close to emotional exhaustion one time from having to "help fix" someone's problem for the nth time, I came to the conclusion that the cause of people's unhappiness is that they focus on their inability to get what they want. Just like horses with blinders who can only see the failures, the lack, and the resulting misery.Their eyes are shielded from the many good things that they have received in their lives. Instead of savoring those that they have, they constantly strip their spirits of their ability to enjoy the beauty and gift of the moment. They are so busy reviewing the what-could-have-beens that they fail to consider the constant stream of blessings that come their way. When Life and Love are ignored because they are not in the form or kind that you want them to be, then one ends up to be a walking tragedy!

        I have since ceased being in the company of certain unhappy people.  I had become afraid that being surrounded by so much negative and defeatist thoughts would pull me down into an emotional quagmire from which escape would be very difficult.  A big No-No because, even with my many limitations and deprivations,  I always try to see what I have by way of unexpected blessings! 


        Yes, celebrating my blessed Life is truly my thing! 
  



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