In the face of that which you cannot change, why should you get upset?
In the face of that which you cannot change, why should you get upset?
Nic
Do you ever have a curveball thrown your way at the end of a wonderful day? Something that you knew (just KNEW) would turn out a specific way only to have fate have different ideas. This outcome is nothing you can change. You’re powerless. There’s no one you can appeal to. No judge to seek arbitration from. The decision exists in a vacuum all its own and you’re just along for the ride.
When faced with this situation, you really have two basic options in how you react. You’re shaken, caught off guard, maybe even devastated. You can either turn inward or outward. Lash out or accept. Destroy or rebuild.
Choosing the high road may feel like the right choice at first. You can’t bring yourself to inflict further harm on someone who obviously made the right choice. But your own psyche will suffer if you don’t acknowledge your own interests. You have needs. You have expectations. You have feelings. It’s alright to feel those. (Granted, being vague as fuck to strangers on the internet likely isn’t helping anyone. But you acknowledge that and move past it anyway. The words are cathartic and maybe they’re helping you. That’s to be determined.)
But maybe that’s why you should get upset from the get go. Talk to that person about how you feel. Acknowledge your own feelings in the matter. It may not, and probably shouldn’t, change the outcome, but burying them definitely isn’t any better. Life isn’t a zero sum game. Your own experiences don’t change someone else’s experiences. But together, you can both grown from the knowledge that something isn’t right. Or it is right and you have to figure out a way through the darkness. Or that maybe there’s loss on both sides. Support one another as you deal with the outcome. Being a pillar of strength for others doesn’t mean that you have to also be strong for yourself. Otherwise you may end up breaking down in the middle of a Popeye’s dining room while everyone stares at you. Hypothetically, that is. Completely hypothetically.
In the end, you find yourself rocking through a 9-pack of beers that was frozen 8 hours ago and are now slightly below room temp. As with everything on the day, only the future will tell us if anything good comes from THAT decision.
Life moves on. Sometimes when you’d rather it not. But that’s how we grow. We learn more about ourselves every time we experience hardship. Some have learned a whole lot more than I have, so I guess I can be happy in that ignorance for a little while.