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children, dad, daddy, family, father, financial, kids, parenting, Philosophy, problems, story, stress
Real Problems 18-January-2012
A couple of days ago, I was reading a story from the archives, and I realized that it has been a long time since I ended a sentence with, “Just another day in Paradise here.”
Every now and then I lose focus. Ok so like a lot of the time I lose focus! A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that, in order to compartmentalize the mountain of issues I was going through at the time, I was going to define ‘Real Problems’ as those which money could not solve. Just my own little way of looking at it. Pancreatic Cancer: Real Problem. Brain Tumor: Real Problem. Power Bill late: Not a Real Problem. I’m not saying that the bills aren’t worthy of worry, I’m just saying that they are a different level of problematic.
Now that I’m pretending to be a grownup, I worry even more ‘too much’ than I used to. It’s in my nature to, as Mom used to tell me, “Stew about it” and that’s not healthy. (Hey kids, listen to your Mommy and Daddy at least sometimes, ok?) The past few months have been such a flurry of problems that I only realized yesterday that I’d gone back to my old habit of just lumping them all together and stressing about all of them equally. Time to regroup.
This morning when I woke up, I was a little giddy with my re-newly-found realization that most of my problems could be solved with one lucky lottery ticket. Yet, by lunch time, the dust of ‘simple’ money problems settled around that one big ugly monster of a Real Problem that no amount of money could ever hope to slay. And it’s a doosie. We all have them. Real Problems and ‘problematic problems’ and minor problems and financial problems. We all get to decide which ones are the real problems and which aren’t, in our own way.
This story, though, is written for two reasons. Firstly, writing helps me sort out my own thoughts, and I’ve been in a writing slump for months. I decided that today I’d just write something, anything, to try to get the ball rolling again. Secondly, I really did need to refocus and get some perspective. Mission accomplished, I think.
Guess how many problems I solved today? None. Guess how many problems I solved by regrouping them into Real Problems and not-so-real ones? None. What I *did* gain, however, is the realization that worrying about all of them all of the time was also clouding the fact that amidst all those problems, I also have the world by the love handles in a million ways! And for every problem, I have at least 10 blessings. And for that one big monster of a Real Problem that will probably never be (re)solved, I have two Miraculous Blessings. My list of Good vs. Evil is weighted very heavily in my favor.
No bills due until February. No monster fighting battles scheduled until mid February. Today is January 18th. And only 3 hours before my Blessings get home from school. I think I’ll tell them that they’re miracles so big that they dwarf even the largest of Real Problems, and make problematic problems seem insignificant. Because that’s really how I feel about them. Just another day in Paradise. All I had to do was dust off the ick. The Paradise was always under there…
Without the darkness, we couldn’t recognize the light. Without the prairie, we couldn’t recognize the forest. Without the Real Problems, we couldn’t recognize the Blessings? Shame on me…
Cheers from The ThreeFiveZero Paradise
Scott,
I have said this before, but I wanted to tell you again. You are an inspiration. And you truly have a way of reminding people what is really important. Thanks for being such an awesome dad.
Tricia
Funny how we thing little things like a late bill is SUCH a big deal until we realize that in fact, it’s just an inconvenience. Being self employed, I used to stress over that SO much but then decided – I can do what I can do and nothing more. Saw a great quote – “don’t let the stress of tomorrow rob you of the joy of today”. Amen.
LOVE the redesign by the way. SO much brighter!!
Kristen