So. I have mentioned the possibility of enduring some ‘validity tests’ whenever I am to commit myself into something. This was what I wrote in my other post;
However much we try to think positive towards life, sometimes life takes the better of us. I’ve experienced in many occasions that just when I decided to choose to be happy and content, life hurled something at my direction and blew me off-track. And I had to work harder to build my happiness because now I was pissed I have failed to stay happy!
The focus was to challenge myself into having a positive attitude, every day, and ultimately, be a better person. To be someone that God has intended for me to be. But it’s not that easy, as we all probably have known by now. And this is the very reason why I took my sweet time to post this one. Integrity, yo.
As I become more aware about my personalities, I can say that apparently, I get annoyed quite easily. Even only by the slightest, most trivial thing. I can be annoyed by something simply because it is there, or by the absence of it. I think it’s because I am a perfectionist; I want everything to be meticulous, as planned and as I want it to be. I am not comfortable with things that are unaccounted for, stalled plans, even surprises, however delightful they might intend to be.
Life is harder to live in (and harder, too, for those who live with me) whenever I keep this attitude, especially when I start gloating. Victimizing myself, I feed my anger with reasons that my anger is the right anger (‘I deserve to be mad at you’), and something that was initially small became a major case. This can’t go on. I need to learn to let go.
If I may play around with analogy; being angry is like being thrown into a puddle of mud. You will get some stain on you when you plunge into it. The choice is yours now; whether to get out of that mud and clean up, or to roll around and bathe yourself in the filth, leading to a harder and longer time to get rid of the stain off you. Rolling around in the mud, hmm, it reminds me of something else, too.
I chose to muck around in the puddle most of the time. Why? Because sometimes, it’s easier. Rather than getting up quickly and getting myself a set of clean clothes, I would just stay there for a while, making mud castles and building up the tension, to see what’s going to happen. I’d get more and more stain on me, and I’d drown deeper and deeper into my fury. Eventually, I would make stupid moves, or bad decisions. I would hurt. And, as I’d known it by now, it would left me feeling way worse compared to if I just let my anger dissipates.
Last week was my testing ground for this Commandment. Wednesday night, hubby annoyed me for his reluctance to take photos with me on a birthday occasion. He has never been big with being in front of a camera, though he has improved a lot since being with me. But his public hesitation irked me so much as I took it as a personal rejection (‘you don’t want to be seen with me’, which is stupid since he is married to me). He might be too shy to ‘make a scene’, asking to take photos when everyone else was still busy eating, but no I didn’t care about his feelings. I ranted at him on the way home, asking why is it so hard for him to change and to actually use the camera if he really likes taking photos. He answered me with, “but I didn’t say no, did I?”. He did go up and ‘surrendered’ himself to get his photos taken, together with me and his sister and the birthday guy, but still. I took it personally, and I spent the night giving him the ‘silence is golden’ treatment.
Saturday night, hubby planned on having a quality time at home, since we’ve been quite busy with homemaking and glueing our eyes on the computers for long hours for work. Delighted by the idea, I made sure I finished tidying up the house earlier. But hubby, habitually, had the laptop on his lap till late at night, again, and I ended up too sleepy to do anything else. Annoyed, I announced I was going for bed. Sensing my rising temper, he begged for me to wait for a bit more, saying about the slow internet not processing his request. I didn’t care, I just covered my head with the blanket. When he was done with the laptop, he persuaded me to talk. And it all went downhill from there.
“Why can’t you try to…”
“Why are you always…”
“I don’t like you…”
All those classic run. He avoided me for a while, thinking that I might need some room to blow off some steam, but it got me more furious. Finally, he sat next to me, held my hand and looking at me in the eye, “why are you so angry? Why do you have to be so mad at me over small things?”
I couldn’t answer him.
Why do I have to be so angry? I really can’t blame the monthly hormones all the time, so I better come up with better excuses. I need to learn to let go of things that don’t matter that much in the long run. Small glitches in everyday life shouldn’t stop me from giving thanks to God and enjoy what I have.
Letting go doesn’t mean losing. It means you’re strong enough not to let it hurts you further. It means you’re wise enough to see what matters more. It means accepting the situation, and moving on. Wednesday night, I fell asleep without resolving, and was awakened by a bad dream. In my dream, I shouted in anger at my husband, and awoke screaming at nothing. He was awake, too, and I told him, “I dreamt that I was screaming at you, angry at you”, and he said, “it wasn’t a dream”. I felt like somebody pinched my heart; I hurt him, and it was too late to take it back. I let go on Saturday night. I apologized to my husband, and went to bed in peace. It felt so much better, because being angry actually drained your energy. I also minimized the chance of prolonging the pain between us inflicted by my anger.
Letting go also means that I am accepting that nobody is perfect. As much as I crave and demand perfection, none of such thing will happen, if I don’t learn to accept and let go. My husband is not perfect, just as much as I am not, either. And I need to remember that as imperfect as I am, he loves me. And God loves me, and He loves my husband, too. If I choose to see, life is too precious to be contaminated by murky matters that won’t cause any dramatic effect in the long run.
And I can always choose, every single day.
One red bowl and silver spoons 