Speaking through others

He Speaks Through People

“I scream just about as loud whether I’m being attacked by a great white shark or when seaweed touches my foot.”
– Craig D., Tampa, FL, c. 1998

Can anyone identify?
Do we have really short fuses or what? I’ve found I have to practice putting up with things that don’t please me, and that complaining loud and long only seems to compound the problem and make both myself and those around me more uncomfortable.

When I was a little girl, I had a friend who went to Catholic school. She told me something I still remember to this day. She said she was taught by the nuns that making her bed, or washing the dishes — something she didn’t feel like doing — she could “offer up as penance for the poor souls in purgatory.”

What a concept — you mean you could get CREDIT!? for doing something your parents were making you do anyway?
So … what if we did that today? I mean, just offer it up to God, or the universe, or whatever/however you want to think of it — this traffic jam, this long wait at the Walmart pharmacy, this losing my job — whatever the annoyance or trouble — why don’t I “offer it up” as a penance, or just a repayment, then, if you will, to the universe, as a tiny price to pay for my sobriety, or as my share of the world’s annoyance that somebody has to bear.

It seems grandiose, doesn’t it — but if I think of it as doing my share — so, for example, I don’t have to live among flies and famine, or I don’t have to get frostbitten because I have no shoes, or I don’t have to get beaten by a jealous husband for not keeping my face covered. Why don’t I just wait my turn, have the hot flash, get the car fixed when somebody hits it — without compounding the problem by dwelling in and on it. Complaining about how life is unfair — I don’t know about you, but wow — I’ve got some nerve. Me and my luxury problems.

Thanks for your sobriety…
Rose