Weakness

 You don’t have to define yourself in terms of what you aren’t or can’t do.  You don’t have to embrace your shortcomings and cling to them with all your might.  You don’t have to be your failures, infirmities, or mistakes from the past.

You can quit complaining about them, too; honestly.

It seems like lots of us, (yours truly, included), lots of the time, like to wallow in the weakness; we prefer sink to the bottom rather than rise to the top; we’d rather fumble about in the darkness as opposed to lighting the proverbial candle.  

We’re babies, that’s what we are, waah-waah.

Of course, this isn’t to say that people don’t have legitimate challenges: poverty, disease, abuse, addiction, Republican parents, you name it, but still: it’s almost always possible to suck it up a bit and do something.  Just because you’re sick, for instance, doesn’t mean you’re dead.  Just because you can’t put your leg behind your head doesn’t mean you can’t touch your toes.  And even if you can’t do that, you can still probably sit up in a chair and breathe deeply—at least for a while.

Life is suffering; we all know that, but it’s not only suffering; it’s also laughter, and art, and friendship, and natural beauty, and green chile stew.  Yes, it can be hard to get out of bed in the morning, but how else are we going to be able to take naps in the afternoon if we don’t?

That old children’s song admonishes us to “stay on the sunny side of life,” and while this may not be always our preferred location—especially as global climate change threatens to make solar rays essentially toxic—there’s much to be said for adopting a positive attitude, especially as the news of the world, and our own neighborhoods, becomes increasingly negative.

May as well make the best (not worst) of what we’ve got, because it’s all that we’ve got, anyway, right?