Your Problems Are Stupid

GUESS WHAT!? I just realized this week that I still pay for this domain and that I’ve written a ton of blog posts that I never published. (Yes, that’s silly.) The following is one of them from either last year or the year before, because I have also decided that paying for a domain where I write blog posts I never actually post is ridiculous – almost as ridiculous as a politician with a Twitter account. (Please don’t send me hate mail or post ignorant comments disagreeing with me or mouthing some vitriol about politics, freedom of speech, etc., etc.  – I don’t read them, I don’t care, I do vote, you won’t change my mind, I will almost certainly block you, and it won’t bother me at all. INSTEAD, go use that energy to donate a dollar to the Red Cross or to a clean water initiative for countries who need it and use your powers to make a positive impact instead of no impact at all. *Thanks, Management.) So, here is one of those drafts, and I have decided that October 17th will be my January 1st and that I will purposely be posting far more regularly. Otherwise, why the h-e-double-hocky-sticks am I paying for a blog domain? Enjoy!

I’ve been traveling lately, I’ve been around more people than I would normally interact with in several months’ time, and I’ve been exhausted by it. It’s been draining, frightening, confusing, exciting, interesting, wonderful, and enlightening, to say the least. I’ve come home with some new perspectives on my day-to-day actions and decisions, I’ve started to find new ways of doing things based on what I learned from some of those interactions, and I’ve also thought of some creative solutions to challenges I’ve been facing for a few weeks, all because I traveled.

Granted, it was business travel, so that was kind of the point – to interact with peers and colleagues who could share with me their point of view and open my eyes to see things in a way that isn’t always comfortable for me. I hope I had the chance to do the same for them. I also got to hear some amazing stories of overcoming obstacles that I allowed myself to get temporarily warm and fuzzy over and then swept to the side so I could focus on my productivity. But when I came home, I started thinking back to some of those stories and reflecting on them. I’ve been getting a little (a lot) philosophical about life and how it should be lived, and I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep (I got almost none, mostly because I don’t sleep well in strange places and tend to just lay there and contemplate the universe, but also because I was in a different time zone and worked different hours and it jacked my system all up, let me tell you.) or the creative juices that started flowing, but here’s what I’ve decided:

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*wait for it…*

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Your problems are stupid.

I know that’s upsetting, but it’s the truth. And what’s even more upsetting is that my problems are equally stupid and when I think about them, not really problems at all compared to other people. I mean, as far as I know, I don’t have any type of cancer I’m fighting while also working while also raising a family while also going to school while also dealing with home repair issues and transportation issues. I do have a job, which I love, I have a family, whom I love and sometimes even like, and who I like to think cares at least a little about me. I have friends, though few, which is by choice and not because I’m a hideous bridge troll who sucks the life out of everything I touch (at least, if I am, no one has told me – and ignorance is bliss, so I’m cool with that). I have a home, and even though it needs some work and if anyone came inside they would think we were hoarders who got robbed but the job didn’t get finished, it’s a roof over my head. I have clothing (far too much of it if you ask anyone else in my family, but what do they know?) and food (including a lot of mac-and-cheese) and clean water. My bills get paid. Our dogs get fed. And my neighbor only mows an indecently crooked line up the side of my yard once per week because she either can’t see straight or hates me and grass.

I have problems, don’t get me wrong. But they’re not horrible. I mean, I could compare myself to my great-grandmother for some perspective. That woman lived through the Great Depression, WWII, buried two husbands and a couple babies before she was 37, raised her other children alone, and lived to be just shy of 100 years old. She was wise, caring, tough, and when I was old enough to understand – hilarious.

So yeah, we all have problems, but when I take some time to consider the problems I don’t have? My problems are stupid. All of this to say, this is a preface to another post where I’ll probably talk about my problems – namely, Crohn’s disease and the issues it causes. What’s awesome about that is that I can totally do that and contradict myself (because it’s my blog – kind of like that whole sales game where “it’s my bat, my ball, my rules”). So stay tuned for a glimpse of what life is really like for people with weird, gross, annoying illnesses for which there is no cure.

But please understand that I, of all people, do know that compared to the majority of the world, my problems – and probably yours, if you’re a citizen of a first-world country – are pretty stupid.