Send in The Clowns, Please?

Feeling a little frustrated with my physical fitness and mental fortitude over the last few weeks, I was definitely not in the good frame of mind to deal with the daily annoyances of life. On television, in conversations and discussions with people, there seemed to be little joy. More often then not, it was about something not working, not doing, should not, could not and all sorts of complaints over how things should be. The image that stuck with me is that of children stamping their foot and throwing a tantrum and hoping someone, somewhere would take notice and make things better. Unfortunately, such is life, you make it what you want it to be. Mummy, daddy, people in authorities, politicians and the government are not going to live your life for you. Get over it.

There just seems to be this refusal to see that as much as life is not perfect, and it will never be perfect, that we should be thankful and to live our lives with graciousness and compassion. There are people who live in poverty, people who live with extreme disabilities and some people in terrible oppression who just ‘get on with it‘. There was a programme on TV recently where a London bus driver went to experience life in the Manila slumps. There he met families, scrounging for food among left-over from restaurants. These people were so poor, they had to scrounge among this heap of what would be food waste to us, re-cooked them for a meal. Makes you put certain things into perspective, when we have people protesting over pensions or no pay rise or anti-establishment by jumping into rivers in a boat race, ‘occupy certain public areas’ whilst queuing for latte at Starbucks.

Then  more recently I was incensed by images of what I seen happened where peaceful demonstrators, asking for a positive change for the country being physical threatened and beaten. I have so much respect and admiration for these people who risked their personal freedom and independence to stand up for what they believe it - some form of democracy that people in more developed countries take for granted. And on the flip-side, we have people living in more just democracy complained about how awful the government is. How inefficient, how useless etc.. the list goes on. The irony is, the very fact that people are allowed to stand up and criticise the government and not risk arrest, is quite lost on most.

At a more personal level, I am by no means a happy clappy chappy but I do believe that it is important to remind ourselves that there are things in every day life that we should embrace positively, to celebrate and to show encouragement. We are too quick to criticise. Too quick to presume, assume and most of all, project our own insecurities onto others. We consciously or subconsciously feel as if we are in ‘competition’ to better another. It is wonderful to want to better ourselves, to improve and if we spend more time on improving ourselves, we will spend less time feeling envious and destructive over the achievements of others. There’s no need to over - emphasized to others ‘I did this’.. ‘I did that’… ‘She/He should have done this or that’.. In other words, stop pointing fingers and talking about others.  If what we have to say, isn’t going to help ourselves and others positively, perhaps silence is the better option.

It may be corny. It may be un-cool to celebrate life.  It may all sound a bit too ‘rah rah’ or too much like a rally call, we all cringe at but, the alternative of just focusing on the bad bits, whinging, complaining etc…isn’t going to make you or anyone else feel better.

Question is do you want to just wallow and hope for perfection that will never come and thus, a self-fulfilling prophecy that life is SO unjust or do you say, come then.. Let’s bring in the clowns, please… let’s just enjoy what we have?