Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Sucks to be so angry!

So, this woman is on TV today picking up her HUGE Lotto 6/49 payday. 20 or 40 million or something - really quite irrelevant when you're talking about a sack of cash that big.

What a neat story. The stuff of story books and fairy tales - scraping together loonies and twonies to buy what ends up to be one lucky, life changing purchase.

I was happy for her. How nice that she wants to help her family and do good and all that. We all dream of what we'd do with an obscene amount of money (shoes baby!) A little bit of escapism never hurt anyone.

But there's a sad part to this too. I came to realize that money can buy a heck of a good time and a lot of shoes, but there's not a chance it can buy contentment, or peace. You see, the lady with the millions upon millions of dollars is so sad and angry that, on national television she had a message for her ex-husband: "Sucks to be you!". Wow.

I can relate because I've been to those dark, lonely, angry places and I know how completely hopeless a place that can be. Granted, the man may have been abusive, made her life hell, and completely smashed her down. But guess what - he's still doing it and he's still in control of her life, and $300 million, let alone 20 or 40, isn't going to fix that.

Recently, I completed a word study to get my head around the concept of forgiveness, and the "A-ha" moment came when it finally dawned on me that the word forgive is a verb, not an emotion. It is a choice, not a "touchy feely" thing. And the inability to forgive is akin to a disability - it blocks a person and does not allow them to really love and find true contentment.

So, as much as I am happy for Ontario's latest member of the nouveau riche club, I feel sorry for her that in the big house, driving the nice car, wearing the fabulous clothes, will still be a sad, angry old woman.

It really does kinda suck to be her.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Uh huh... some day, maybe over that martini, I'll tell you a story about forgiveness. Some of the least-expected people are capable of it.

But it's a great mantra. If you don't forgive, you turn it in on yourself. The problem is, when you consistently feel angry you can keep forgiving and that's a supply that really does run out. When it does, you have to decide what to do about it. Or yes, you start to feel angry.

I'm pretty happy. I don't HAVE to forgive any more.