Four Words that May Bring You Peace

My last eighteen months have been consumed by relationships. Family. Friendships. Romances. Hey, sometimes when alone, I even had the opportunity to relate to myself. Do unto you as you think you’d like to have others do unto you…

I digress.

Relationships have been on my mind lately. Well, the relationships people no longer have. Months of introspection, a year of material loss and a whirlwind of changes recently fueled a revelation: These four words have saved my life:

I…can do… better.

More of my friends are starting to live these words. Usually, these conversations occur after a drink and a rundown of a current relationship. Again, friends, family, romances. It doesn’t matter. Apparently, as we put on the years, we learn not to own other peoples silliness. I know too many good people who are making this clear: they realize their contributions to some relationships are like putting expensive gas in a rental car. The situations don’t call for it. It is just waste of time. The added expense won’t get you anywhere any quicker, and no one is going to appreciate it. In fact, the car probably had issues all along.

I often wondered what would happen when good people stopped doing nothing. You heard it here first. It’s happening.

This isn’t about anger. It’s not a rant. Man, it’s a calm, decisive statement, like, “I’m losing this twenty pounds.” When I first heard it, I almost cringed. It was…eerie…No, this definitely isn’t anger. This is something else. In a time where it feels many of us are through the looking glass, this is a revelation. Imagine the apple hitting you on the head while you sit under the tree. “Why am I dealing with this? I can do better…”

Nobody wants to deal with craziness as recreation anymore. That’s for younger folk and more prosperous times. The angry, controlling, critical, game playing, indecisive inconsiderate and unconcerned mental state is no longer attracting folk. Why it ever did, Lord only knows. People are starting to smell it a mile away and are doing evaluations, then making hasty exits. I am especially noticing this trend among my male friends. Turns out Terry McMillan only wrote about the half of the male population she made the bad decisions in choosing. The rest of us learned that heartache and bullshit are not gender specific. To heck with writing a book about it. Cats is getting out and living past it. They realized they can do better.

I also notice that while these often run over people are still empathetic, they are starting to place limits on how understanding is applied. No more, he/she is crazy, but we’ll work it out. No. It is now, “Sorry youare loony tunes. Please get some help while I get a restraining order.” I myself have taken to carrying area psychologists’ business cards in my pocket. You get five minutes to make me feel even a bit creepy, then you’re getting a referral. I can do better. Personal psychosis is all that I can abide.

Did you ever stop to wonder why crazy people attracted you in the first place? Why you would subject yourself to their initial “Hey I’m cool” and stick around as they morph into Mephistopheles before your eyes? “Yeah, he’s a class five demon, but I mean, who’s perfect?” Appearantly, no one else can understand this logic, either. People are now like, “Y’know, that fancy job cool walk great rack Alicia Keys tuchus ain’t enough to deal with this silliness. I think I’ll let you take your assets and darken someone else’s door…” It’s like a new religion. "I Can Do Better." We're working on a radio show Sunday mornings...The plate for the building fund is coming around.

I’m seeing this phenom with careers as well. Hard times have forced a lot of folk to look at their quality of life. They guage what expenses have to be met, and just do them. “I can do betta…I'ma make sure the rent get paid and lights stay on, but if I’m gonna slave, let it be to write that novel I always dreamt of. I ain’t havin’ no heart attack for nobody but me. I can do betta…” That thrills the hell outta me. People ask me what I do, I respond, “As little as bleeping possible.” I can do better than having someone judge me based on what it says on my W2.

The wisdom is revealed: You cannot please everyone. In fact, you shouldn’t try to please anyone. Being the best you that you can be, under your own steam, by your own rules, is enough. Espescially for those who want to be in your space. You get exactly nowhere taking ownership of someone else’s problems. Including their problems with you. They knew you had the problem in the first place. They wanted you to change. They can’t take the good with the bad? How smart does that make them? Big dummy.

Take stock of your relationships. This includes your friendships. Presumably, we all learned as children that people who really like us just accept us for being ourselves. Somewhere along the way, seeking respectability, or stability, or whatever, many of us forget that. If it’s not working, get rid of it. When each of our time is up, we’re all going alone. Our regret will not be the number of people we avoided and disliked, but the ones hunored who were never satisfied. If you can love, like and accept you, then the part timers who round out your cast should have no problem doing the same. If not, remember this: it’s a big world. You can do better.