Embrace the 99%

The other morning was one of those mornings.  We woke up to a giant hairball and pool of foamy cat vomit strewn across the kitchen floor.  This was actually somewhat of a relief because the cats usually find the toughest-to-clean, most upholstered places in the house to upchuck.  The kitchen floor is much easier to clean than between the cushions of the easy chair or a basket of clean laundry.  My relief was short-lived, however, as a walk into the living room revealed that my cat friend celebrated his kitchen hairball victory with a celebratory piss on the couch cushions.  With feline murder on my mind, I set about cleaning up the messes.  Right on cue, mere minutes after I cleaned the kitchen floor, the over-sized couch cushion, which my wife has successfully previously laundered in the washing machine, caused the washer basin to go unbalanced flooding the kitchen floor.  Seven sopping bath towels later the flood was contained.  With messes fixed it was time to get ready for Grace's Pre-K graduation.  Of course, I discovered the shirt I planned on wearing, my last clean shirt, had been bombed by a bird while on the clothesline.  Wow, pee, puke and poo.  That's an animal bodily fluid hat trick!  Even Jungle Jack Hannah doesn't get that lucky.  What was there no raccoon that could scurry into my home and ejaculate in my shoes for good measure?  Later, after graduation, Grace's teacher was complimenting me, telling another mom I was like Dad-of-the-Year because I always had my stuff together regarding Grace's schedule.  I just chuckled to myself thinking I was glad she hadn't seen me hours earlier, clad only in boxer shorts and undershirt, wading through the middle of my kitchen pond shaking my fist at the cat and shooing Grace from the room.

I tell you all that to tell you this: none of it really mattered.  There were times these events would have left me cross all morning, but not anymore.  You see, I, Bryan Hailey, negaholic, pessimist, Debbie Downer, am trying something new.  It is not easy, but gratitude is the answer.  We, the unhappy among us, spend so much of our time focused on what is going wrong.  The truth is so much is going right.  Call it whatever New-Agey phrase you want - Attitude of Gratitude, counting your blessings,whatever-it works.  If you focus on the 99 percent of things that go right every day, you have nary a moment to focus on the 1 percent that isn't working.  Think about it-we take so much for granted.  Why not celebrate that our car starts every morning or that planes don't fall out of the sky?  Why not delight in the fact that our bodies function properly far more often than they don't?  Embrace the simple.  Marvel at the mundane.  Never take for granted the 99 percent.  Derive your strength from it.  Look around you and note what is working, what is going right, what makes you feel good.  The 1 percent may not be repairable, but you will never know if you ignore the 99 percent.  Be grateful for it.  Revel in it. Put your faith in it.  Then you will be ready to tackle the 1 percent.

People that know me well may be wondering if I have been replaced by an imposter.  Or if I am drunk at my keyboard at 11am.  I know it sounds very "Serenity Now".  Perhaps some of you will wager when I will blow my stack, Kramer-style, and trash my metaphorical room full of computers.  You may be right.  Be skeptical all you like.  The reality is that life isn't easy.  It smacks you around a bit.  But I am working on it; I am trying.  I am feeling my way through it, 99 percent at a time.