Do
you think we are designed to feel frustrated? Built to become underwhelmed by routine and lack of spontaneity in our lives? It makes sense
if you want to be logical about it. If humanity wasn’t created this way then
what would drive us to do better? Achieve more? Work harder? I understand the
reasoning and all but it would be swell if the moments when the giddy feelings
of goal achievement satisfaction starts to dissipate and the inevitable
grey-ness of discontentment creep in were further apart. Much further apart!
One
moment I feel like I can take on the world and anything it has to throw at me
and the next I’m wondering how I have remained alive for as long as I have. I
should be able to navigate rough waters relatively well. After all, I was given
a pretty good starting kit in life. If the multiples of morons the world over
can survive- and excel , surely I should be able to? And then I don’t. And
reality hits me with the force of a hundred unpaid bills and I am left
surrounded by the shrapnel of my self-confidence. Dazed and bewildered at why I
have not yet achieved greatness. Or at least nauseating wealth. I’d settle for nauseating
wealth.
And
then there is the guilt. The guilt for not appreciating my life. The
opportunities given, the family I have and the love I receive. The guilt for
not throwing up my hands daily and bursting into song for the partnership I
have been lucky enough to find, the friendships I have been able to maintain
and the employment I hold. What kind of a thankless, ungrateful horror doesn’t
count her lucky stars for the blessings showered upon her. This thankless horror
it would seem. Because today, all I can think of is that I’d rather be anywhere
but here, listening to the crackly radio and the tapping of this keyboard. Each
and every email I receive sends me plummeting further and further into my
carefully constructed house of self-pity and judgment. Why haven’t I done
better? Why haven’t I achieved more? Why am I stuck here?
But
then the day ends and I come home to my little corner of the world where I get
to choose the soothing colours that surround me, the food in the fridge and the
shows on the TV. I get to curl up in the arms of the man I love and forget that
I am not the owner of a Fortune 500 company or a great political revolutionary.
I get to feel like the queen of the castle and of his heart and I get to sleep
in a warm bed. For a short while I get to feel smug at my noble feelings of
gratitude and thankfulness……….
And
then my alarm clock goes off.
