100 Silver Spoons, 1000 Irritations

 I have everything.  I was born with a hundred silver spoons in my mouth, the greatest of which was my family's commitment to education, to thinking.  My parents were smart, educated people.  (Until much too late in my life, I didn't credit Mom much with brains.  She loved being a mother, wife, and homemaker.  That was what she actually wanted.  It looked terriyingly boring to me.  But when my sibs and I were getting to college age, Mom went to nursing school and graduated top of her class.  The woman was so much smarter than I knew.)    And they loved us.  My dad found the right career for himself; he drank, but he didn't hate his job, as so many do.  His career moved him regularly upward, so we had money; we were absolutely, snugly middle American.  I was born with a strong, healthy body and a good brain, (of which I've used even less that the usual 6 per cent we pink monkeys tend to use), and thoroughly alive senses.  I was taught to be kind and to mind my bigotries, to heal and erase them as best I could.  I met the perfect man to share my life with, even including our arguments and sometimes cross-purposes.  I love where I live.  I love and am close to my extended family.

Well, this is getting embarrassing, so I'll move to what this is really all about.  The previous paragraph is all a set up for the heart of the matter.  Which is that, with all this richness of sustenance and nourishment and unearned blessings, I way too often get into a snit about something or other, become territorial.  Peck at Sweet Hubby, or hold myself away from him, for no reason.  Just be sort of a cranky bitch subject to a thousand irritations.  All these gifts, all this abundance, and still my little ego hides and deflates and defends itself.

I come back once again to the hard hard question: How can I expect better of anyone else if I, with all this behind me, can still become selfish or mean over nothing?  I don't even know what else to say.  I want so much for the world, and I can't seem to kill off the idea of the possibility that we can all do better, and are trying to, and will.  But people still traffic little girls for sex.  People still plant road bombs and steal each others' land.  People still build entire political parties based on hatred.

It is so easy to feel hopeless and cynical.  But I know that it is my sacred duty, as one of the "good" people of the world, to keep hope alive.  Better than hope; to keep spirit and action and joy alive.  Most of the time I don't see how I can possibly do that, but if I don't or can't or won't do that, it won't much matter what else I do.