Ravings of a Tuesday.

Something that I dislike:
Politeness.

Hah.
I better explain myself here, before I lose all of my followers.

I dislike the forced politeness, the kind that doesn't really mean anything, and doesn't help at all.
Case in point:

"Hey, how are you?"

Now, if you are friends with the person and they honestly want to know how you are, that is one thing.
When the person is just asking out of 'politeness' and doesn't even really stop to hear the answer, that is when it annoys me.

And nobody ever really tells the truth anyway. It's always "Fine", "Good", "Great", etc.

I would rather we skip all that and go with just a nice "Hello" instead of going through the stages of common courtesy.

*Moving on to next segment*

Today at work, Sparky*, asked me how I was doing. Now this is a guy who actually stops to talk to me so I knew it was more than just going through the motions. I paused, and said "Good, I guess.". He replied with, "Good? A 'you are alive and here' type of thing?". And I agreed.

Which brings me to my main point of the day.

A lot of us when we reply to this question say something neutral, usually tending to go with the "Fine"s and "Not too bad"s. Because in our mind, we aren't doing too great, although we don't want to admit it in polite conversation.
But honestly? We are doing way better than we think we are.

Here are some #Firstworldproblems that we face, click on the link if you want to laugh at how needy North Americans are.

Now, I wasn't expecting this post to go in the directing of 'the glad game', but why not? (if you have never read or watched Pollyanna then I'm disappointed.)

I could say I'm not doing so well because I had to wake up at six in the morning to drive twenty minutes to work only to get there and have to work for 8 hours in the cold.
Or I could be thankful for the fact that I am alive(!), have a job, a car, and a body that is able to work. The list could go on but I'm just giving you an example here.

Living here in Canada, we are blessed with SO MUCH. But we don't even realize it. It's sad really.
I have been privileged to travel to Haiti, Jamaica, and Mexico and I have seen people living in desperate situations. My heart was saddened by this, but not enough apparently, because I still complain when Tim Hortons messes up my order three times in a row.

Over this next week. every time I complain or think I am having a bad day, I am going to challenge myself to think of five things I am blessed to have.
I encourage you to do the same, or just take moment now to.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent(or not so)

P.s. One of these days I'm planning on writing a post on my new job. I keep having great ideas for it, but by the time it gets around to writing, I have forgotten them all.