Last year, sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, I found myself finishing leftover candy and biting into a Jolly Rancher – a recipe for disaster for anybody with a mouth full of dental work.
As you might have predicted, it wasn’t long before I was at the dentist. I don’t like dentists much. Maybe it was because, as a kid, our family dentist was Dr. PAIN… uh… Dr. Payne. Still, there I was with the sound of drilling and suction filling the room, along with the occasional mumbled answer coming from my mouth, answering important questions like, “What have you been up to lately?” Then tell me not to move my mouth.
Seriously?
Is that a skill they teach at dental school?
Please wait until your patient can’t speak and ask them a question.
That’s like me asking my young kids a question at the dinner table and telling them not to chew with their mouths open.
But that’s life.
Sometimes, life doesn’t make sense, even though I would argue that things are always good, which is why we notice it when they are not. And boy, it does happen a lot this time of year. Then again, it happens a lot every time of the year.
I’m writing today as most of us roll through the holiday season. I think it’s good to keep two things in mind:
Life can get in the way any time of the year, and it will.
No matter how crazy, it should never be unexpected. By the way, that includes the self-inflicted part that is so common. I don’t want to hear anybody say why me, why it, why now?
As we say in the South, “It is what it is!”
Besides, since life is getting in the way, stuff comes in all varieties, and we don’t have the right to enjoy the good stuff if we’re always complaining about the bad stuff.
Next, no matter how much life gets in your way during the holidays, most of us seem to find a way to make it unique for ourselves and others. So, if you’re going the extra mile to make magic, you don’t get to enjoy the compliments and smiles on the faces of others if you complain about how hard you worked to make it happen.
Of course, if you’ve made it this far into today’s message, you might be saying,
“Sure I can! I’m fully capable of complaining about my suffering and being happy. Besides, that’s who I am!”
Sure you are. But why not skip the grumpy part and enjoy the fun part?
And you can do that all year long!