Whacked by perspective

[Umbran]

So, this morning, when my wife went to take a shower, my weekend got kinda tossed into the trash. Apparently our water heater has given up the ghost. It isn't spilling water all over or anything, but I cannot get the pilot and/or burner to light. So, I'm expecting to need to replace it, and I'm spending my day hunting down recommendations for plumbing/heating people to do the job. So much for my day.

I was all set to gripe about it. But then, someone took a 2"x4" of perspective, and whacked me solidly in the head with it.

One of the guys in my Deadlands group spent the night in the hospital - headache, aphasia, and some other symptoms. He and his wife feared a possible stroke (he's not ancient, but he's old enough for that to be a real possibility). Thankfully, he didn't have a stroke. Instead, he appears to have a brain tumor.

Needless to say, my desire to gripe about a busted water heater have evaporated.

Some of you may have seen me occasionally chide people in Mod Voice, about how they're silly to treat people badly about peculiarities about how we pretend to be elves. This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. There are people out there with real problems. There are things that can take your livelihood, or your home. There are things that make it so a surgeon has to open up your skull and cut bits off your brain. Compared to these things, whether or not there are healing surges in a hobby game are piddly, whiny little concerns. Nothing to get mad about, though. Nothing to treat people badly about - there's more than enough real bad stuff in the world, we shouldn't add to it.

So, with some of your leisure time, it is fine to discuss games. But keep that discussion in perspective. Treat people with respect, because the Universe doesn't. Don't be part of the crappy things about the Universe.

 

[Nellisir]

This seems appropriate.
Whoops! Wrong link!

Here we go: http://youtu.be/oHv6vTKD6lg

 

[Umbran]

Nellsir, I can't give you more XP right now, but that was good.

 

[Zaukrie]

I just broke my femur, and my perspective on a lot has changed.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

(I'm in the same boat- can't giv Nellisir any XP right now.)

There is nothing wrong with venting about one's problems. Indeed, it isn't healthy to bottle things up- blowing off steam helps keep you sane.

One of my past pastors gave a sermon about how a person bemoaned the size of the cross he was carrying*. He was told to take his cross into a room and exchanging it for any other one he wanted in there. He walked in, put his down, and looked around. He saw all kinds within the room, and finally decided to pick up a modestly sized one and walked out, happier.

It was the one he walked in with.

Its hard to keep perspective. When you are down in a foxhole, struggling with your problems, it can seem as if the world is really gunning for you. But when you get out of your foxhole and look around, your perspective gets restored- what felt llike a bombardment may have been just a light rain of shrapnel compared to what was coming down 20 yards to your left.

The criminally underappreciated Neneh Cherry wrote a song, "I Ain't Gone Under Yet" , about a young woman living in poverty addressing someone who is looking down on her because of her station in life. She points out that, despite her poverty, she has avoided the pitfalls that claim so many in her position, that her attitude is one of forward thinking and vision- one of the lyrics is:

your under is my over i've never seen your over yet
but don't forget
I ain't gone under yet!

* for non-Christians, it is the cross Christ carried to his own execution, used as a metaphor for the burdens in one's life.

 

[Umbran]

There is nothing wrong with venting about one's problems. Indeed, it isn't healthy to bottle things up- blowing off steam helps keep you sane.

It isn't that I think it somehow wrong to gripe. It is more that, in view of current events, I recognize it to actually be a non-problem. It no longer elicits the same emotional response from me.

I mean, really, what does my current issue mean? I will have to make a bunch of phone calls to find a plumber or heating tech. I'll have to pay out a notable, but not really threatening, chunk of money. I will probably have to heat water for washing dishes and baths on the stove for a couple of days. Big whoop!

Basically, I had very fast readjustment of scale, such that my difficulty no longer looks of feels difficult.

 

[Bullgrit]

I liked the link, Nellisir, too, and I gave you xp for me, Umbran, and Dannyalcatraz.

Bullgrit

 

[sabrinathecat]

There's a difference between venting burdens, and whining about piddly stuff. For most boards, we get whining. Look at my posts. I rest my case.
Umbran, I gave him an XP on your behalf.

 

[tomBitonti]

One of the guys in my Deadlands group spent the night in the hospital - headache, aphasia, and some other symptoms. He and his wife feared a possible stroke (he's not ancient, but he's old enough for that to be a real possibility). Thankfully, he didn't have a stroke. Instead, he appears to have a brain tumor.

If the diagnosis is not definite, here's hoping for a false alarm. If definite, for a good prognosis. My sympathies in either case.

Yes sir, life can reach up and give a huge whack up side 'o the head.

TomB

 

[Janx]

Well, i hope umbran got his water heater fixed.

It may be a smaller problem than somebody else's, but it is still a setback, at least financially