Shmoozing

Wanting to make everyone around me happy is something that is either part of who I am or was instilled in me at a very young age. Were I a shmoo this would be a very good state to live in.

Being shmoo-like is not a particularly good thing, because there is a part of me that wants to be loved and appreciated for exactly who I am and I am not a shmoo.

I realize that there are times when I have to do what is best for you even if it makes you unhappy at the time. I also realize that I have to do what is best for me even when it is not about someone else.

Sooooo . . . cultivating relationships where I need to be the darling one, the provider of all possible needs, means that I need a very strong sense of self. And, frankly to be happy living this way, I also need to be able to let go of baser emotions like jealousy. I say let go because, like mist over the ocean, it rises on its own. Letting go simply means knowing that it is a natural phenomena that requires navigating through it without sinking the boat.

I was brought up with a black and white measuring stick for right and wrong. Everything had distinct borders and people who stepped over those borders were wrong. Looking back over many years of experience, I suspect, now, that they were only human. Humans living in a black and white world have to have lots of secrets and secrets are a whole other game.

Some secrets are better staying that way and others eat away at the base of relationships like acid from the inside out. Knowing the difference is tricky because it changes person to person and situation to situation. It turns out that life is not black and white, but filled with those same misty borders that both keep the mystery and destroy the basis of relationships.

All of this knowledge just becomes the breeding ground for a barrage of self help books and the best thing that comes out of the majority of self help books it the sense of achievement and monetary gain they bring the author. If you want that, you need to write your own!

Seriously, it is my sense of self that will ultimately make me as fulfilled and happy as I'm ever going to be. I need to know what I need, what I can do, and what I am willing to deal with to get all that.

As long as I am respectful of others and realize they have the same rights that I do, we will all find our own place.