Choose Your Problems
quality time
moments that matter
As mentioned in a recent post, I very recently started listening to The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F@#$ by Mark Manson on my commute. I'm only a couple of chapters in, so I don't feel prepared to give my verdict on the book, but I was struck by a particular idea that the author proposed.
He said, in effect, that in life there's no way to avoid problems. (This is essentially the Buddhist principle that suffering is inherent in life.) Even the things we desire deeply eventually become our problems. The dream house becomes the hefty mortgage payment, the longed-for baby is the person waking you up five times a night, and so on. So, your goal should not be to avoid problems altogether--because to do so is impossible--but to think about the problems you want to have.
The Witching Hour: A Problem I Want
This idea was brought home to me recently looking pictures of a potential birth family shared by a dear friend. She and her partner are in the midst of the adoption process, and the birth mother shared pictures of herself, her partner and her children. The pictures of this family and their adorable children kept floating in front of me--as I sat down to do work, as I stood doing dishes. I thought forward to the early evening when my kids would rush in the door from daycare, fried, wired and, likely, screaming (or at least talking at the top of their lungs...do we even call that talking anymore?). As much as I missed them all day long, the witching hour when they returned home and we tried to feed them dinner was one both my husband and I had come to dread. But then I thought, what if there was another one on the way and I had to give them up for adoption? What if some circumstance--finances, illness, break-up--put me in a position where I might have to let go of one of my children to provide them with a better life?
Screaming toddlers will never stop being trying at the end of a long work day. But they are problems I'm so grateful to have.
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