I had gotten up yesterday morning thinking about work. I was thankful that my shift was only 4 ½ hours long because I was looking forward to coming home and working on the blog. Like normal during my drive to work I start thinking and preparing myself mentally to deal with customers. As I turned into the parking lot, the engine of my car suddenly stopped running. My first thought was, “okay this has happened before just stop and restart the engine.” So, I fired the car back up but as soon as I put the car in drive the engine died again. After repeating the same steps to re-fire, the engine, I thought this isn’t normal. I managed to keep the engine running long enough to pull into my parking spot.
Have you ever had one of those days when you expect things to go along normally and you are even feeling thankful and suddenly something like your car dying in the parking lot changes your whole outlook and day?
That was my yesterday. As I ran to clock in and start my shift, I realized that I had barely made it in time and now somehow, I had to shift my focus from the car problems to being happy to see customers. Normally, I am able to make the transition putting aside whatever I am thinking about or dealing with to focus on the task at hand. When I told my friend about the car issue my friend could tell that I wasn’t happy. Later, my friend returned and said why are you not smiling? The honest answer was I simply did not feel like smiling I told my friend.
It’s always troubled me when the expectation is that we are always supposed to act like life is always a happy affair. If we are honest, you and I both know that life is not always a happy affair. Sometimes, life is amazingly hard and when life is hard and painful and things appear to be piling on making it even harder the honest thing to say isn’t that we are happy but life has been hard and even kicking my ass, that’s the honest thing to say but so much of the world only wants to see the mask of happiness and to hear the words, “life is great.”
If you ask me, I think most people are we afraid to be honest with themselves and want to keep believing they are on “It’s a small World” ride at Disneyland and you best not rock the boat. I am at my core an optimistic person and there are times when we need to tell ourselves and have others remind us to smile. Yet, sometimes it is better to just be honest with ourselves and not be afraid to say it.
“We will never know the comfort of others or the blessing of sharing a burden if we continue to say life is great when it isn’t.” A Frankism
Thoughts? E-mail: francisearly@francisearly.com
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