{"id":3114,"date":"2023-07-19T17:59:14","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T21:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deborahblackwell.com\/?p=3114"},"modified":"2023-07-19T18:00:03","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T22:00:03","slug":"were-not-at-our-best-in-extremes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deborahblackwell.com\/?p=3114","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re Not at Our Best in Extremes"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

By Deborah Blackwell<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The whole world needs a breath of fresh air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Relief from the pressure of the last few years hasn\u2019t come, and now, on top of everything else, we\u2019re dealing with horrendous heat and dangerous fine particulates blowing in and out of our once-invisible atmosphere. What\u2019s next?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earth is a very different place now, and it\u2019s not just the weather. Humanity is in trouble. I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not alone when I say, people have really changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other day, I stood at my front door to let in the burly air conditioner repair man. As he was walking toward me, I imparted a hearty, \u201cGood morning!\u201d He didn\u2019t even look up. His grump proceeded him; I could feel it in the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I realize it\u2019s not my job to make people smile, but I came into the world that way, so it's a genuine struggle.<\/p>\n

I held the door, but he uttered not a peep of a \u201cthank you.\u201d Instead, once inside, he dumped his tools on the floor along with his catalog of emotional debris.<\/p>\n

\u201cMartha Stewart ruined it,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was here to check a dripping sound in the furnace pipe, but led with Martha Stewart? I braced myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe invented fancy, expensive air filters that just clog up people\u2019s furnaces,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re too thick. Dense. The air doesn\u2019t flow. And now I have to clean up the messes she\u2019s made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmmm,\u201d I said. And not my problem. My air was flowing fine through my cheap, generic air filter. But he didn\u2019t stop there. While he puttered around my furnace, I got more than an hour of the things he didn\u2019t like about the world, and how they\u2019ve impacted his life. He lost his help. He can\u2019t retire. His life-long business is about to buckle. His office staff is gone. He\u2019s on his own, and I have \u201cno idea how tough life is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, buddy? Really? Where do you think I\u2019ve been living the last few years? I\u2019ve got my own problems. We all do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to believe that underneath the ever-present grrrrr people project, there is goodness. But kindness and respect are after-thoughts, or maybe not thoughts at all. It\u2019s a self-serving society now. All for none and none for all.<\/p>\n

This is tough for a kind-hearted softie who has built a life around trying to make people smile. Call it a character flaw, but now I\u2019m asking myself, why? The smile isn\u2019t working. It\u2019s getting harder to bounce back with other people\u2019s dense emotional debris swirling through the air. We breathe it in, everywhere we turn. The market, the gas station, the doctor\u2019s office, wherever we are, everywhere. I\u2019m exhausted. But what can I do? Maybe I should ask Martha Stewart.<\/p>\n

There was nothing wrong with my furnace, or at least nothing the repairman could find. What\u2019s wrong was that I was, once again, inadvertently on the receiving end of somebody else\u2019s pain and had to shake it off like a wet dog. They say we receive what we project, and I used to believe that. But if that were true, more people would smile. Kindness would be a thing. It doesn\u2019t take energy to smile, but misery sucks you dry.<\/p>\n

So, I don\u2019t want to upset anyone, but while the world is being weird, I\u2019ve decided to be a little more for me. Disconnect from whatever is holding me back from personal joy \u2014 whether that\u2019s other people, bad news, disappointment, regret, the past, or even the future. Instead, I\u2019ll try to rise above, not be sucked in, or hold onto somebody else\u2019s particulate matter. No apologies here. I\u2019ll keep smiling, but I won\u2019t put up with grrr. Humanity needs a filter, and that filter is up to me.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not my job to make you smile, but be a breath of fresh air? That\u2019s key.<\/p>\n

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