To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
 
It seems like a time for emotions running high. Mine don’t need too much of a trigger to run high so…I am in a fix. I feel like at such a time one must let go of minor disappointments but then everything is minor compared to what’s going on so what one means is to let go of disappointments in general. I have had a disappointment brewing up for the past one week and today it was sealed. It is of the class of minor but does not feel that way to me maybe because, as I said, emotions are also running high because of everything else or maybe because I have so few things that I really look forward to that even a small disappointment seems like a big one.

This disappointment for some strange reason makes me reflect on my own foolish propensity to jump to the conclusion that people care…far more than they really do. I have this habit of either liking people too much or disliking them too much…so when it’s the former I will make all sorts of excuses for them in spite of evidence to the contrary and if it’s the latter I will give them very little leeway even when there is a slight benefit of doubt. The latter doesn’t make too much of a difference because if I don’t like them much there is usually a fundamental reason so not giving them leeway doesn’t really hurt me or them. The former is where I generally stumble and fall a lot. They keep letting me down, keep falling short of my expectations, keep taking me for granted, keep not returning gestures, keep not taking my feelings into account… and I keep making excuses for them. I guess at some point I realise how stupid I am for viewing what people perhaps see as transactional relationships for trust-based ones; for placing my loyalty where there is no warmth or appreciation or care but only contractual obligation. I wish sometimes I could be transactional or contractual in my dealings too but it just doesn’t come naturally to me…maybe it is something I must learn… if I am to avoid disappointments.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 8:16 pm 0 comments
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