Containing the Messiness of Life

When our problems get to number more than three or four we get a strong inclination to walk out the door; most of us. And whether it’s physically departing or unconsciously disconnecting matters little. Too much messiness is difficult to contain.

But the skilled of all people, despite their messed up minds and lives, manage to somehow contain the overwhelming impossible. They don’t do this through endurance, but through honest acceptance. They know life is messed up at times, just as life seems surreally clean at others.

Holding A Ticking Bomb

It may be politically incorrect to use the ticking bomb analogy, but each of our lives might resemble something that might ‘go off’ at an appointed time. The humbling thing is we often cannot tell when; it ticks and ticks and ticks... then boom!

We may have planned a holiday or vacation, some lovely time off, but reality bites soon enough; soon we’re back into the filthy fray, within the heated demands of a life we, at times, just want to escape from. We recognise this if we’re honest. We have a happy day, thinking that life has never been more wonderful, and the very next day, WHACK, and we wonder what’s hit us. Maybe rather than a ticking bomb we’ve walked over a landmine. Times like these the previous day’s happiness appears overrated, indeed.

Getting Past Unrealistic Expectations

If only, within the broad expanse of life, we could satisfy our foolishness to never get ahead of ourselves; to rein in our expectations that seem to float and waft via our imaginations. But if we’re not capable of happiness and sadness, or celebration and disappointment it makes for a pretty boring life—not that we want much (or any) of the sadness and disappointment.

Containing the messiness within our lives appreciates the value of reasonable expectations, understanding that a perfect life, without messes, is unrealistic.

An approach toward those ends doesn’t get much simpler than a one-day-at-a-time outlook. But this approach becomes clichéd. Practically we have our contentedness for the moment, but the emotional status quo is bound to waver, ebb and flow.

Beyond a melancholy resignation we can accept the good with the not-so-good, but only if we can honestly accept it. And sometimes we cannot. Sometimes it’s too much. Nobody is perfect.

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Sometimes life is a downward spiral, and this can’t always be explained. Messiness beyond our comprehension overwhelms, but not if we hold the moment in accepting we’re overwhelmed. There’s nothing wrong with being overwhelmed. Sometimes life’s like that.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Image Credit: ClizBiz.