Not Good Morning
Today is one of those days where everything should feel right, but it doesn’t. I got up early this morning. I hit snooze once, then actually got up. Lately, I’ve been doing that 5 or 6 more times, but today I got up, I made my bed, and now I’m at this new coffee place in Franklin, Tennessee.
For whatever reason, I don’t feel right. I’m not “on.” I don’t feel positive. I don’t feel like anything is worthwhile or meaningful.
Even writing this has slowly added to my misery. Not only am I suffering, but now I’m pushing myself to express it and articulate it. And the problem is I don’t know why I feel this way.
Potential reasons today is no good:
- It’s Thursday.
- The sun is not out.
- I have limited independence in my current living situation.
- This coffee shop sucks.
So those are mainly trivial. The first 2 points are entirely out of my control. Which is good, I can ignore them. The 3rd is worth looking at because it causes me to have real negative emotion, and I need to figure out why. I am the type of person where I do not, and I repeat, I do not like reporting to anyone on what I am doing. When there is no freedom for me to come and go without question, or I can’t make a choice on my own accord, or when people require me to explain a routine decision, I get annoyed more than anything. It irritates me and I can’t control that negative emotion. I just experience it when it happens, much like you experience pain when someone slaps you in the face. I can’t help but feel that. I am wired a certain way, so I feel disrespected when someone steps over a very obvious boundary I have in my mind. But that’s the problem! It’s in my mind, not theirs. So I’m not upset with the person personally, I’m more upset with myself that I have this trigger that makes me feel small, controlled, and trapped. So that’s on me. That’s something for me to work on and proactively manage.
Now let’s address this coffee shop. I understand issues with entitlement. You should never feel entitled because you are not entitled to anything and most things in life are a gift — we fall short when we think or expect or falsely assume we deserve to be pleased or happy. I suppose I screwed up when I expected good service walking into this coffee shop. As a patron willing to travel and pay money for something, you kind of expect that to be worth it. When it’s not, it’s disappointing, but who really cares? I can get over it.
Everything that bothered me 20 mins ago when I started writing this has faded. My coffee came out fine, I found time to read and write, and I was able to think through some of my own shortcomings. Not so bad afterall.
