Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Being and happiness

Peanut and I had an interesting discussion today that reminded me of something.

Being happy is hard.  I think it takes more energy than being unhappy.  Maybe other people are different, and maybe this is just my Crazy Mom influence, but "happy" is not my natural state of being.  I have to look for reasons to be happy, and I actively argue with myself in my head whenever I feel myself getting upset.  It takes a lot of internal head-discussion to convince myself to let go of something when I'm bothered by it.

I choose to believe that's something that lots of people struggle with.  Don't ruin my delusions.

So Peanut mentioned that it's hard to avoid comparing her situation in life with other people around her.  Let's be honest; most people do the same thing.  But it's fun for everyone when a crazy mom does it!

Some highlights:

If you don't have a house on the beach like your sibling does, it's because your spouse has failed to provide for you!

And if you don't have at least $2,000 of free spending money every month, it means your spouse is cheating on you!  How else would all of the money disappear?

Everyone else in your city drives clean cars!  When your spouse spends all week working in another city and drives back home on the weekends, make sure you start by nagging about how dirty his/her car is!  Remember: it's incredibly thoughtless to pull into your own driveway with a car that hasn't been washed in 2 weeks.

Everyone has cable!  If your own daughter doesn't have cable at her apartment, she's a heathen.  In fact, it's too embarrassing for your own child to not have cable.  You'd better call the cable company yourself and arrange for them to install cable for her, so she will realize the error of her ways.  (To be fair, this one happened before the advent of Netflix.  But still.)

How dare the neighbors bring you packets of hot chocolate at Christmas?  They must not buy anything nicer because they don't have as much money as you do.  It's a good thing you have lots of money, so you can buy the newest electronics every year.

That new TV in the store looks so much better than the one you bought a year ago, and it's bigger!  Better grab it while it's on sale.  It can just sit in the box until you figure out which room it should go in.

Those houses on TV look so nice with their exotic flooring ideas!  That means your house would look great that way, too!  You might as well buy all of those materials now in preparation for doing that yourself.  And a shrimp sink really helped that one place, so it couldn't hurt to pick one up so you'll have it ready when you come up with a good location for it in your own house...

The coup de grâce?  Did you know that if your spouse isn't bringing home at least $1,000,000 a year, it must mean he/she's hiding money from you?  Go, tell your significant other about this wonderful new knowledge!  Do it now!

Seriously, though, there is always a reason to be unhappy.  The real trick is figuring out which reasons really matter, and then ignoring the ones that you know you won't remember or care about in 3 months.  In honor of Crazy Mom, let's all take 5 minutes today and think about reasons to be happy.

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