Monday, July 27, 2015

Musical Mondays- Mumford & Sons "The Cave"

I've been in a rut.  I'm betting some of you noticed this, due to the recent lack of posts.  Work has been slow, but instead of meaning I have more energy, I feel like I have less.  I got into a path of negative thinking where I feel like I'm wasting my time with my job, and it's not meaningful, and I'm feeling unfulfilled intellectually and even unfulfilled in my spirit.  When really, I should have been thankful that I had more time to plan stuff around home and use the down time at work to finish some work projects.  Instead, I just kind of ground to a stop.

But this past Wednesday, something happened.  One of my best friends was attacked.  Some guy with a knife came up behind here while she was walking that evening and threw her to the ground and intended to rape her, but she fought him off, got his knife away from him and ran home.  The cops caught the guy, because he also had dropped his cell phone in the scuffle.  My friend seems to be doing pretty well besides a little cut on her face, and a bad case of poison ivy from wrestling this guy in the ditch.

It just makes you think, how much worse it could have been, how sucky it is that a woman can't walk alone after dark, and how much you can hate someone without ever meeting them.  I'm not naive, I understand rape happens, but in my twisted logic head it's at parties were people are drunk, or on blind dates, or Law and Order:SVU.  Not in my little tiny town, and certainly not to someone as sweet as my friend.  I was angry for a couple days, and I'm still worried for my friend, but then my attitude kind of changed.

After grilling my husband (who used to be a cop) about the best methods for disarming someone who is attacking you (sense I too walk alone, most days on my supper break), I kind of realized I can't control what happens.  You never know who you're going to cross paths with and what their intentions are.  And sense hating this pervert who attacked my friend- which really does nothing to him, and just makes me angry, all that all I can do is love the people around me better.  When one of my coworkers ask me to do something that they are perfectly capable of doing themselves, I can do it with a smile.  I can offer help to others without being asked, build others up, give compliments and thanks, and try to think of ways to make others' burdens lighter.  No one likes a Debbie Downer.  And to be honest, when I'm down, I'm 100% down, but when I'm upbeat, I'm 100% upbeat.  I rarely have days that are so-so, I'm all in no matter what mood I'm in.  So, I need to consciously strive for happy.  And it's a proven fact that helping others is one of the best ways to make yourself happy.

Is being happy going to prevent anyone I love from being hurt?  No, but being down is not going to neither, so I might as well choose happy.  I might as well choose to help others.  To listen to their thoughts and try to carry their worries with them.  Nothing in life is certain, all I can control is my actions and emotions.

So, after all that, here's my song of the week:


I love the lines:
And I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again 
I know it's easy to get self absorbed, and think only about what affects us.  But don't lose faith.  And remember to love each other. It's not always easy, and sometimes it's downright hard, but it is right.

And of course, head over to My So Called Chaos to link up and see what everyone else is listening to this week.

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