I'm sitting in the office today, watching footage of this horrible, 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti, a country that frankly needed another disaster like it needed the proverbial hole in the head.
It's a country that survived multiple hurricanes in the span of three weeks in 2008. It has one of the highest unemployment rates on this side of the globe, if not the highest. Housing is built out of what can be afforded, not what is safest. More than 80% of its population lives in poverty.
And all of this reminded me of a blog post I meant to write over the weekend, but for various and sundry reasons opted to let it marinate a while.
As 2009 ended and 2010 began, I saw a lot of grousing about the previous year. A lot of it, granted, is warranted. By all accounts, 2009 took most of us out of our financial, emotional and mental comfort zones in many, many ways.
But three little letters many people used in 2009 set me on edge. Every time. FML. Fuck My Life.
"I have to get all the kids fed and finish up a project before 10 p.m. FML." "My tire was flat this morning. FML."
To this, I have to ask - really? Your life is that bad? You have no friends? You have no family? You do not have moments of joy? Let's dissect the whole phrase, shall we? Fuck My Life. I hate my life. I want to chuck it. I abhor everything about it, and if I could find a new one right this very minute, I would.
Is that what everyone means when they tack on FML after a complaint? Because imagine this: Right now, there's a mother in Haiti worried about the fact that her husband hasn't come home from his now demolished workplace, trying to reassure her children that everything will be OK when she does not in fact know if it will be. She may very well be a widow, and possibly facing a lifestyle that will downgrade from impoverished to really impoverished.
If anyone deserves to say FML, it's her. Not me, or anyone who just woke up to an intact home, a fridge full of food, running water, and a job. No, we have it pretty good.
So while I know I'll complain this year, I can promise you this (and here comes Resolution No. 1): I will not be tacking FML on to any of my complaints.
And now that I've mentioned resolutions, I have one more: I'm going to accept help, and quit railing at karma. Yes, I do nice things for people. I'm thoughtful. But I got to thinking the other day that perhaps some of us are just not letting karma pay us back because it's not from an expected source.
My lovelies, karma is a bitch, and she always calls the shots. She chooses her way to pay you back, and it's not going to always be by conventional methods, or by your same close group of friends. If it always happened that way, you'd not respect and appreciate karma. You'd only do nice things for you friends, and they'd only do nice things for you. That's friendship, not karma. The two sometimes intersect, but they're not conjoined twins.
So be open minded to the myriad of ways karma may be trying to pay you back. I know I am going to try to do this more.
Rant over. Carry on. And be nice to each other today. It's rough out there.
