Being Blithe and Bonny

I may not make many friends with this one, especially girlfriends, but there are those times you have to call it as you see it.

It is becoming more and more apparent to me the amount of influence and thus control women really do have. We can manipulate almost any situation. Don’t think for a moment that those shy, quiet types are excluded in this statement for they seem to have the most control.

If we are unhappy with life, which I am also finding includes most women, we find ways to make everyone around us unhappy. If we are angry, watch out world, we’ll find a way to declare war. If we are hurt, we will fight back. If we are not satisfied, we find someone to blame. We LOVE sympathy and for some we’ll do whatever it takes to get all the sympathy available at the moment, or the day, or the week, or a lifetime.

We have lost the skill of suffering alone. We may feel as if we are alone, but we can find ways to suck the entire world into our gloom and doom.  We long for attention and pity parties provide a satisfying amount of attention – at least for the moment.

We have to ask; are we really suffering? Or are we just spoiled and find ourselves not getting our way? Perhaps we live in a world of expectations so unrealistic that the thought of being content seems impossible and would require everyone around us to leave us alone. Are we really suffering or are we just living out the consequences of our own choices?

For those women who are truly suffering, they need our attention, our love and support. Most of the time there isn’t enough support left because the life suckers have used it all up.

I’ve done my share of life sucking. I have been that person longing for pity. If invitations were sent out for my pity party, I would have felt validated. I have played my share of  My Life Sucks Worse than Yours and I have won several rounds. It’s an exhausting way to live.

I have been memorizing a poem from Shakespeare’s play, Much Ado About Nothing. It’s a short poem which is very good because I have never been one to memorize. In the poem, Shakespeare tells us to be Blithe and Bonny. I had to look up the meaning of Blithe and Bonny.

Blithe – adjective

1.joyous, merry, or gay in disposition; glad; cheerful: Everyone loved her for her blithe spirit.

Bonny – adjective

1. pleasing to the eye; handsome; pretty.

2. healthy, sweet, and lively. placid; tranquil.

3.pleasing; agreeable; good.

I don’t know many women I would describe as Blithe and Bonny. I wonder if they have conventions. Maybe they all live on the Island of Blithe and Bonny. I don’t think they are listed in the phone book. I’m guessing their husbands are very happy men. Maybe their husbands have them locked up so the life suckers don’t get to them. Perhaps I don’t know their around because I can’t hear them over all the bitching that’s going on.

I’m going to learn how to be Blithe and Bonny. I’m guessing it will require me looking at what I have instead of what I don’t. It will most likely require me to grow a grateful heart. I may have to forgive and I may have to ask to be forgiven. I’ll have to practice smiling. I expect I’ll have to give back the trophies I’ve won playing My Life Sucks Worse than Yours. I’ll have to cancel the pity parties I have penciled in. I may have to learn that sometimes life just sucks.

I think it will be worth it. It can’t be that new of an idea since Shakespeare wrote about it. Join me if you would like. Maybe we’ll meet on the annual Blithe and Bonny Cruise…a week of joy, cheerfulness, tranquility…where life sucking is not allowed. Now that would be a party!