I was getting ready to make dinner tonight. I opened a can of soup and spilled 3/4 of the can all over the counter and the floor. At a different time in my life, I would have cussed a blue streak about it and been very angry/upset. Instead I just laughed to myself and said “Good thing I have more than one can of soup!” and then opened up a second can of soup and heated the whole mess up. Yeah, it was two different kinds of soup. They tasted just fine together.
In the moment that I spilled the soup, I could have chosen to be angry, which would have accomplished nothing or I could clean it up and make my dinner. It got me thinking about choices.
I know that in my life, I’ve felt many times like I really didn’t have a choice. I had to take a particular course of action. There weren’t other options. But when you’re faced with doing things that don’t appeal to you or things you don’t particularly like, your choice comes in how you respond to the situation. You can be angry about it or (the opposite end of the spectrum) you can cheerfully accept the path you must take (which isn’t always a really genuine way to feel about something you don’t like) or you can “put up and shut up” until you have the option to do something to get you off of that path.
Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t the path we really want to choose. It’s uncomfortable. It’s not what we want. Again, this is where you can choose to maintain a positive attitude or you can choose to be miserable about the situation. And it’s not easy to feel “ok” about doing something you don’t really want to do. It’s even ok to feel a bit disgruntled that you aren’t getting to do what you want to do. Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you that you couldn’t stay up late to do something you really wanted to do and you felt angry and like they didn’t understand that whatever it was you wanted to stay up late for was important to you? Guess what? A great deal of adult life (at least mine) has been facing that very same situation. I don’t WANT to have to clean the bathroom, but it needs to be done so I have to do it whether I want to or not. I don’t want to spend my money paying bills, I’d rather go out and have fun, but I have to pay the bills or I will lose the place I live and lose my ability to sit at my desk at home and blog.
Anyhow, I feel like I found something out about myself tonight and I actually feel good about it. I may finally be finding myself. Not just the person that other people see, but the real me.
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