SEVERAL events in the past few weeks have helped me reassess myself and my priorities and, as a result, I am pleased to announce that I have decided that I am happy.
Obviously I have had much to be happy about for a long time but, as is always the way, I got distracted by the stresses of work and commitments and completely failed to focus on how lucky I am. I have a beautiful wife, a lovely home of our own and a loving community. I have stability, a family who are always there for me and anything I need to sustain all of these is readily available to me. I’ve just had a really nice weekend where I had nothing to worry about and the sun came out. I’m starting to feel like I fit in at work, the pressure has dropped and, by virtue of the fact that people now sometimes come to me for help (it was always exclusively the other way around before), I feel that I have garnered some respect there too. And, I’m delighted to say, I have a new niece.
This feeling started to come to me on Friday, as I sat at a fume hood, splitting cell cultures into highly specific media, singing along to Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl on the radio with the lady in the adjacent hood, whom I had never met but who was clearly also having a pleasant Friday afternoon. It was a silly moment, but one that was desperately needed.
I was recently asked to draw a pie chart of my week and what I do in it. I quickly came to the conclusion that I don’t like the true pie chart of how I devote my time. So I’m working on changing that. It was a necessary evaluation of my priorities and how I’ve slipped: now that the chaos of work has passed by, it is time I got back on the right track.
I’ve got much to be thankful for. So I’m going to start being thankful for it.
In the shadow of so much in the news that is bad or horrifying, I hope I am not coming across as insensitive. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those affected, be it by tsunami, earthquake, the violence of the Arab Spring or any form of oppression. I sit here thankful of who I am and where I live but I am not being smug about it. I confess it took a week for me to comprehend the events in Japan, whereas I was crushed instantly by the faintest rumour that Gaddafi was bombing his own people, but I hope for safety for all. (I heard about the airstrikes when only Al Jazeera was reporting the possibility that they had occurred. The mere suggestion prevented me from achieving anything that evening; I was horrified.) I have no answers or words to make things OK, I just hope for all affected and am thankful for those able to help those in need.
I cannot think of a conclusion to this piece. I’d written several endings but they either sounded trite, flippant, selfish or pointless, so they have all been successively deleted. The world needs your attention, not this post. Not now. I’m doing alright, that was my point, but right now that’s not really important.
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