Life is complicated. If life isn't randomly throwing me things to deal with, then it seems I seek them out. Mischief finds me, or I find it!
It may be all that Cancer in my chart...they're known for seeking out the emotional drama in every relationship. Or perhaps the Gemini...too much processing leads to suspicions everywhere! Or perhaps it's just being human...
Honestly, when I have long catch-up chats with other folks, my life often seems blissfully serene in comparison. Perhaps the universe knows I stay in a perpetual state of feeling overwhelmed and thus is actually less demanding of me than it could be.
Anyhow, this rambling conversation was inspired by the book of a new favorite author, Sophie Kinsella. I LOVE SOPHIE KINSELLA!!! She's a fabulous, wonderful author with an amazing ability to inspire with her ridiculous, lighthearted situations. She is a wonderful Sagittarius, as are many of my very favorite people (though ironically, NONE of my immediate family members are Sag).
I am on my third Kinsella book, which is her original Confessions of a Shopaholic. Becky Bloomwood is a lovable character with a penchant for getting herself into scrapes. Her life is a roller coaster of highs and lows, and, though it does seem a bit shallow, she inspires by constantly letting insurmountable troubles fall away in her unbelievable optimism! This story encourages us to Try, Try Again! It's also a boon for our egos, as our own faults seem less severe after making so many allowances for Becky's!
I actually identified a bit with Becky when I would feel her horrible, mortifying lows and wallow in them just a tad, only to feel myself lifting out of those lows way before I expected to when she would bounce back with her cheery, perky, optimistic attitude. You just can't resist laughing at her...and knowing that she's right! No sense in wallowing!
I have watched small children instantaneously jump from tantrum to cheery play, and I've often been quite relieved that they don't have the self-consciousness to resist that jump. Truly, I think many of us are attached to our troubles out of a sense of congruity. If we're devastated tonight, then it would be terribly shallow to be bright and perky tomorrow--and it would somehow negate the authenticity of our feelings, goes the logic.
Yes, I did feel disconcerted at times by Becky's ability to bounce back and not dwell on her troubles, but I also felt inspired. We create our lives, and a big part of that is trying to achieve our goals. Clinging to negative emotions or situations makes our life about those, instead of a balance of highs and lows. Perhaps we should just aim to fully experience them as quickly as possible and then we're off to experience the next high with full enjoyment.
I suppose that's part of the attraction of the book for me. Becky DID experience those lows. She berated herself, felt extreme humiliation, fully realized and experienced the drama of the situation. Utterly satisfactory wallowing and wailing! Her indomitable spirits surged back, though, unfailingly.
She did acknowledge her likeness to a child at one point, when she commented "like a child on Christmas morning...well, okay, like ME on Christmas morning."
Children have a certain wisdom in their unaffected simplicity in dealing with trials. We MUST bounce back in order to enjoy our lives, because we ALL have problems. So in this sense, Happiness is dependent on letting go of our attachments, much as the Buddhists tell us. I would say the attachments to our troubles are some of the first attachments we need to eliminate.
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