Inspect Your Tongue or Draw a New Face

Today Sucked. Well, at least it started out that way. I was planning on taking this day off of school to relax, catch up on sleep, and maybe visit a few friends. I just wanted to be left to my own teenage devices today.

Curses, Batman. Foiled again.

My parents woke me up early so I could do chores today, none of which I was really in the mood to do. We did some service by cleaning my church building, then came home and did household duties (i.e. bagging leaves, cleaning the basement, dishes). I wasn't grumpy on the outside, I knew I'd catch hell if I complained. But that didn't stop me from being grumpy inwardly. Soon I found a laundry list of excuses for what I was doing. "Can't we just leave the leaves until my brother mows the lawn? That'll pick them up.", "I still feel really sick from my cold, being out here can not be making it better.", "Mom's just going to criticize how I cleaned and make me do it again, why bother?", and so on. I was picking apart my day for reasons to be angry at something or someone and as the day wore on, I found myself getting more and more frustrated at little things.

It wasn't until around 3 o'clock that my attitude changed, which leads us to today's song. Today's song is "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Doesn't make sense? It's okay, just hold on, I'll explain.

I was in the shower, brooding in my own brat-iness, and this song came on the radio, and I couldn't help but pick out these words:

"I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in mirror,
And bending over backwards just to try and see you clearer,
But my breath fogged up the glass,
So I drew a new face and I laughed."

Thank you, Life, for the kick to the teeth to get me back in gear. It made me think of optimism, and how I had used absolutely none of it the entire day. I had been doing what the song said: "...spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror...". I think sometimes when we have a bad day we spend time looking for any small sign of a problem, blow it up, and add it to our seemingly horrible day saying "Today couldn't get any worse!" I'll be the first to admit, I do it all the time. I'll have days where I just refuse to be happy. When people were around me who were super happy, I'd just look at them and think "What the crap did you eat for breakfast this morning, Crazy-O's?". Everyone has days like that - We're humans. It's our job. So what do we do about it?

Well, I did exactly what the song said. I drew a new face and I laughed.

I started to think of all the good things I could have (and should have) noticed that were positive about today.

• My parents have taught me from a young age the value of hard work, and because of it, I can know satisfaction from service and a clean house.
• Cold medicine can be a god-send for a nasty cough
• My little brother, despite being annoying sometimes, can still find ways to make me smile
• The sun was still shining when I was raking leaves
• I found my headphones today
• My friend who's in a different state found out he'd be able to come home for Christmas before he left for military service
• Friends will sometimes make random Skype calls to talk about nothing in particular, but just to talk. 

...and so on.That lead me to think, how ironic is it that it's only been two days since Thanksgiving, and I had already stopped thinking about all the blessings in my life, just because I was a brat and didn't want to wake up early this morning. But after going over the good things, my mood changed drastically. Strange as it sounds, those few lines from Jason Mraz made me realize my crappy day was my own doing - I was picking out everything that sucked. But finding the good things was my own doing as well. We can choose to have good days, and we can choose to have bad days. Point is, it's our choice.

So what will you choose: Inspect your Tongue or Draw a new Face?

I'll leave that to you to decide.


Keep on Listening
Lydia