Want Change? Start with You!

Since the school shooting I've been thinking a lot about how messed up the world is.  How there is way too much anger in it and how people don't seem to value being kind to one another.  In stead we value "winning" arguments, many of which don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

But I can't fricking change the world.  I mean, I'll do my darndest to try to end capitalism and stuff like that, but I actually personally have very little control over it.  I can only change myself. 

So my resolution this year is to experiment with some change for myself.  Making myself kinder and nicer and more compassionate and less violent.  Now hopefully you are all like, "but you already are so nice and compassionate and peaceful!"  Well, I can be more so.  And some of you are probably like, "good!  You're a total bitch!"  To you I say, no I'm not, but I guess you have a right to your opinion. 

My husband is a huge inspiration for all of this.  He doesn't get angry, really.  He doesn't stuff his anger, he just simply accepts things and moves on without freaking out.  It's something I've learned is called "radical acceptance" in dialectical behavior therapy.  You can make him angry if you sit there and push is buttons like some crazy spouse of his... ahem... but he rarely complains about his job, or his low pay, or his health, or his anything.  Somehow he, like, knows he is doing the best he can and nothing else is in his control.  I mean that's what people like me go to 10 years of therapy to learn! 

Not only does he know they aren't in his control, he knows there is no point in getting angered by the things outside of his control.  He will certainly point out discrepancies, and injustices.  He's smart and will calmly argue facts and knows a lot of them, but doesn't get all depressed or angry or bummed out when people act dumb or do illogical things or believe illogical things.  He knows he can't make them agree with them.  Again: Some of us go to 10 years of therapy to learn this stuff, then we need years of practice to be OK with it!  He just does it already.

Sometimes I feel like I married the Buddha.  At least some incarnate. 

Yes, I know how lucky I am, and it seriously makes it hard for me to see faults in him because this one quality is so awesome that I feel I have no right to pick on anything else.  Though, you should accept your spouse for who they are, but that's another topic all together...

I joke that he actually is my better half.  But it is so true.  He makes me want to be a better person.  We don't have screaming fights not because I don't want to have those (I think they are fun sometimes!), but because he won't scream back at me and well that fact pretty much just diffuses any of my screaming.   So I find myself standing there, having just lost my temper and just feeling stupid because he doesn't take the bait.  Then I just feel horrible that I would yell at him.  Then I'm like, "I gotta change and get this anger under control so I stop treating my husband like crap."

So anyway 2013 will be the year of experimental change.  More details later for January's challenge.