I am blessed

I’m not at all sure why I’m writing this. Maybe to vent. Maybe to share. Maybe someone needs this as much as I do. If so, I hope it helps.

What do you do when it feels like the world is against you?

No, I’m not talking about the real kind—where entire nations would just as soon you were dead—but more of the life’s got you down variety. At one time or another, we all experience some level of that.

It’s a virtual guaranteed part of life that we will encounter some form of adversity. Many of us are fortunate not to know what it’s like to grow up so impoverished we have no place to live and nothing to eat, or so hated, just because of who we are. But all of us will have some obstacles thrown in our path, some trials, which will test our patience and try our resolve.

Does it matter how we handle those trials?

In my experience, it does matter.

I can’t say any of mine have been impossible or particularly profound. In fact, because of that, I find myself downplaying even ones which might be considered large to others.

I can’t help it. Even when some cosmic tumbler clicks into place and all kinds of unfavorable circumstances start raining down, after some initial, “Here we go again,” or other self-pity wallowing, I find myself counting my blessings.

When I go to a dealer, which is more than an hour’s drive from my house, to buy the six-year-old SUV I can surprise my wife with, only to have it end up in the shop four times now (and counting) because the courtesy lights won’t come on, a phantom problem with the Electronic Stability Control System keeps reoccurring and at least a dead battery (still not sure if there’s something else wrong), it goes beyond trying my patience.

I suppose I could yell and scream and throw a tantrum, but at who, and what? I’ve noticed that being calm and reasonable goes along way, especially when the people you’re dealing with are used to having people fly off the handle.

That’s not to say I haven’t tried it. Just ask my son. He’s been on the receiving end of not-so-patient-or-forgiving me.

In fact, it’s been happening quite a bit lately because he wants to be more independent while he’s back living at home and basically still dependent on Mom and Dad. Convenient for him, nerve wracking for us.

Add an increasingly serious relationship with an 18-year-old girlfriend (he turns 23 next month) that is barely three months old, of which they have spent more time apart than they have together (he was in Mexico for four weeks visiting relatives with my wife, and now his girlfriend has been in Idaho going to school for the last three weeks), and it just gets worse.

I’m letting my old-fashioned upbringing show, I know. I’m supposed to coddle him and let him run the house now because it’s his life and my days of ruling the roost are past (Yeah, right!).

Still, despite our differences, my son is good and I love him. It could be worse. A lot worse. We could hate each others guts, or one of us could be in prison for murder. The fact that we can still hold some kind of conversation that doesn’t end in verbal brawls is a plus, even if it is as good as it gets sometimes.

Those two things combined are enough. None of it’s life threatening, but it grates, and there are consequences.

So, what else could happen? How about the business I’ve owned or co-owned for the last 14 years tubing? They say things come in threes, so something had to round out the Trial Trifecta, so why not that? After all, all things must come to an end, even the good ones.

Still, while we’ve had as many uncertain years as we’ve had good ones with the business, the good ones have been better than the bad ones have been worse. No, it sure didn’t feel good during the bad times, and yes, I was still looking over my shoulder during the good times because they seemed too good to be true, but because of those times, we’re in the best financial situation we’ve ever been.

Barring some kind of global meltdown (which more and more people are predicting, by the way) we’re in as good a position as ever to weather personal financial difficulty.

I suppose I could go on. I could add the nagging pain in my hip and leg that only bothers me when I’m sitting down (which is what I spend most of my waking hours doing—imagine that); or that feeling we should move to Texas, without knowing how that’s going to happen or what I’ll do when I get there, just that I need to do it because time is running out; or any of a myriad of other things going on with extended family and friends, but I’ll spare you the rest.

I’m sure you’ve got your own problems to worry about.

All I really wanted to do when I started this was to say, I am truly blessed. Regardless of the inconveniences and the nuisances and the undesirable things in my life, I am very fortunate. I have a wife and two sons who love me and I love them. We have a comfortable home and our assets exceed our debts. While the creaks and groans of getting older exist, we are generally in good health.

I can complain, and I do, but I am only being ungrateful. I believe in a life beyond this one, and I believe there is a purpose to all things. Faith in God, in a brighter day, tempers my impatience and generally brings me, even if it has to be kicking and screaming, back to a point of knowing what I can control and accepting what I cannot.

In the end, what else is there but to do all we can do, and let God fill the gap? Curse our lives and wait for death?

I hope never to feel that way, and if I do, I hope to be counting blessings after.