Elizabeth: Happy Monday!?

I am so sour this morning. No, I don’t just have ‘a case of the Mondays.’ I am simply feeling cynical, impatient and generally irritable (and NO, it’s not ‘that time of the month,’ either, thank you very much!) It’ll pass, I am sure, but what bothers me is the fact that, in my mind, I think how I really don’t have much of a right to feel that way today. I am not a widower this morning. I did not just lose my father unexpectedly. I am not embroiled in a scandal of international proportions. No one in my family has cancer. When you break it down, today is an amazingly good day.

I take a deep breath after saying that to myself, and there is a tiny shift. I feel a little lighter, my ‘problems’ seem a bit more inconsequential.

The news media can be overwhelming sometimes—inescapable, almost; but it is a wonderful tool in gaining a little perspective on my own life. Is that wrong? The fact that I look at the stories of people passing on, leaving children and spouses devastated in the wake and then think, “ok, she’s got it way worse than I do.” It seems sort of terrible to make myself feel better through the misery of others, but I bet I’m not the only one. It’s not a case of schadenfreude—I don’t derive pleasure from their misery, just a notion that maybe I can get through whatever my current challenge is if they can. Really, that my current challenge isn’t a challenge at all, just an annoyance that must be handled. As a friend of mine said to me this morning, “hell, we ALL have problems!”

I suppose that is the truth. So, for all of us that are feeling less than stellar about our own current affairs—let us turn on the news today and I guarantee something on there will make you feel better.