Thursday, June 30, 2016

Life is not fair. Get over it!

This post is a long time coming and as with a lot of my posts, it has found a home in my mind and essentially has found time to remodel.  I think it all started with Ramadan.  I have to go back 2 years. Two Ramadans ago, I remember finding myself at a spiritual low.  Usually for me, Ramadan is a magical month.  It's a month of miracles.  I have always found a way to connect in this wonderful Islamic month.  Yet, 2 years ago, I was bereft and there was a void that was only growing larger.  After all, I was in Ramadan and my void was not getting filled.  What was wrong?  Had I gotten off the path so far that I was past redemption?
I remember a patient's mother.  She donned a hijab and obviously a Muslim.  She was delightful as a person.  I hate to say it but not everyone (despite religion) are fun to talk to.  This woman had a wholesome honesty about herself.  So, we talked and I asked her about Ramadan and how it was going.  Her response surprised me.  She talked about how it was so hot and she was not able to connect and get spiritual and for the first time I felt like a person again.  I felt validated that I wasn't the only crazy one, and maybe there was hope for me.  It was just one of those things.  I could think back at that day and if I were to dig deep I could say that her appointment and our conversation was somehow of spiritual bearing.  It was meant to be.  It was meant as a source for us to uplift each other.  A message that perhaps despite the heat and our lack of spirituality, it was still going to be OK.
Then there was last Ramadan.  Same story.  I couldn't connect and I felt like I lost a huge part of myself.  Ramadan was this blinding flash light in the darkness and I had just lost mine.  Which leads me back to today and this post.
When Ramadan started this year, I immediately sensed the month.  It's like I could feel it like one feels a cool breeze in the summer.  It was tangible.  Woo Hoo!  I was saved after all!  The funny thing is that I recollected 2 years of a missing Ramadan and here I was, found again.  I thought to myself that there were times, there are times, in life when I feel like life is not fair.  With Ramadan for the past 2 years;  why did I lose it?  It's just not fair.  I want Ramadan just as much as the next person.  I strangely started thinking about my life in general - what I had and what I wanted.  I started taking a tally.  How many friends did I have?  How many family members did I have?  How many people really mattered in my life and more importantly, how many people do I matter for in theirs?  And then the wonderful world of comparison, yes, I'm being sarcastic, began!  I thought about things I was not entitled to that other people had - big ticket items, like a family of my own.  I started thinking about how all that will affect my life when I'm old and forgotten.  I look at the elders.  My parents, uncles and aunts would rather spend time with their own children than with their cousins or siblings.  That was life and that will be my life.  There will come a time when everyone will be busy with their own families and lives and I won't have one of my own.  Gosh darn it!  Life is not fair.  I do not like this dice roll.
It's then that I turned the tables back on myself.  I'm usually a very happy person and someone who is very grateful for what I had.  I thought about my life and its progression.  I could talk myself into depression and oblivion if I started thinking about things that I didn't have.  Big or small - it's all relative.  I started thinking about why I was mostly always giddy happy, with a few exceptions and then the answer came to me.  It's because I've always accepted that life was not fair.  Life is not fair TTR, get over it.  That's all I had to say to myself.  I thought about the millions of people who would die to get a chance to trade their life with mine.  The multitude of people who live without arms or legs.  People who fight cancer and are facing their ends too soon.  What would they say if they heard my spoilt brat rant about how life was not fair?  And then I started seeing everything I had in a new light and started getting very grateful and happy.  I am blessed with what I have.  It is today.  Tomorrow may be different, but like I've said before, we are not promised a tomorrow.  Nobody is.  So, carpe diem.  I know of a lot of people with a lot less than me who complain about how life is not fair and how they want more.  My response - get over it.  Your life is not even half as bad as you make it.  Truly, if I do not respect the blessings given to me, then even those may be taken away and there's a lot.
I kinda have a "if I had" at the back of my mind but it doesn't plague me anymore.  I have caged the beast.  It's only a reminder that if I truly wanted something, I could go after it.  I could take the effort and make it happen.  I think to myself.  If I wanted a family, I could adopt.  Ha ha ha.  That's a big joke.  I do not want children and I do not want to take the effort to raise them.  Call me selfish.  So, there you have it.  If I do not put in the time to sow the seeds, I cannot complain about not reaping benefits.  I have to accept myself and my life.  Life is not fair but I'm so over it.  I've moved on.
This spoilt brat has a Muny show to go to tonight with her husband, with some fabulous season's tickets.  Yes.  Life is great and I am blessed.
Living in the moment!
Have a great one.

TTR

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