Peace

I wrote my last blog, patience, during the commercial breaks of The Bachelorette. I've always known on some level it's a ridiculous show, but it's my guilty pleasure.

So on Monday I wrote my blog on patience, posted it, and returned my attention to the show. And suddenly I was struck with a fresh realization: This show is so stupid. 


Now let me be clear upfront: I'm still going to watch it. But in that moment I decided that I'd like Emily to pick my least favorite of the remaining guys. Because no matter who she picks, they'll probably break up in a few months, and I'll be far less disappointed then if she picks a guy I don't like now. I realized just how frivolous the whole thing is.

And despite my dad's opinion that the whole thing is done with paid actors and it's all fake, I don't think he's right. There are real human emotions at play, in my opinion. So I'm watching Emily bawl her eyes out over having to send someone home, and realizing that she's probably just picking someone to spend the next few months with, not the rest of her life, and I just had this big picture perspective of how silly it all was.

And then I thought, if I could take a step back from my life and see the big picture, maybe I'd see how silly I'm being sometimes. Not that it's bad to feel things or that we should shove down our emotions. But I let the dumbest things eat me up sometimes.

Like yesterday I was waiting to turn right out of the McDonald's parking lot, and someone else was turning right into the parking lot, only they weren't signaling so I didn't know I could turn, so I was waiting for them until I realized they were turning, only by then there was another car coming so I had to wait more. Anyway...this car that failed to signal honked at me as it turned in. SHE honked at ME? What did I do to deserve that? I was really ticked off until I remembered what the pastor said about not letting the little frustrations get to you, and about patience. Oopsies.

So it's dumb stuff like that. But even bigger picture...it's OK to feel, healthy to know your emotions, but when you let those feelings and worries consume you, that's not OK. And I do that, too. But if I could take a step back and see my life like I finally saw The Bachelorette on Monday, I'd probably roll with the punches a lot easier.

So I think it was a combination of those realizations and the discoveries I made as I wrote my blog on patience that gave me this overwhelming sense of peace. I've never experienced something quite like this before. I just turned off the TV when the show was over, went upstairs to get ready for bed, and felt this wave of peace sweep over me in regards to something I'd been letting consume me. And I wasn't even thinking about the thing then, just kinda brushing my teeth and such and this peace hit me. And it hasn't left! This peace is such a wonderful thing, and guess what it's helping bring with it: patience!