what should be and never was. right?
there is just something about the human soul that strives for more. we just need so much. it's like watching my 3 year old godson playing. it doesn't matter which toy he has, the one that i pick up is always better. and of course, he wants it. immediately! except we're all adults and you'd think we'd understand life a little better at this point. right.
last week as i sat in traffic, waiting for what seemed like forever for a clearly inexperienced bus driver to merge into my lane, right in front of me even though there were plenty of other places for him to merge behind me, i found myself staring at the jeep sitting beside me. jeeps are my current lust. i own a 2000 'rolla (rollin' in da 'rolla! suga please!), that currently has a muffler attached by a few treacherously thin and rusted coat hangers, unable to hit 60 in under 60 (minutes, not seconds), and has lord knows how much bird poop on it (that is not typical, but i had to let it sit outside one night and apparently the neighborhood birds decided that this was their chance to exact their revenge upon me for our bird feeder being empty for an entire week. sorry lil' guys). needless to say, when most people look at my car they are not green with envy. though they may turn green when they're riding in it, from being seasick.
anyway, back to the point. jeeps. i know exactly what i want. jeep grande cherokee, 2001 to 2004, black or silver exterior, gray, black or tan interior, heated leather seats and a bangin' sound system. and big enough to haul two newfies and our future children! specific? yes. so of course the jeep sittin' next to me was what looked like a 2009, jeep grande cherokee, black and beautiful. and i wanted it. immediately! the thing is, when that bus finally got it's big ol' pah-tooty out of my way and i was free at last, speeding forward in joy, even if it was only for about 20 feet (if you don't commute during rush hour you will never understand this, so don't judge me), that big black and beautiful jeep next to me stalled out. poor guy had to sit there for 'bout 15 seconds to get'er started again, and lemme tell you, 15 seconds in traffic is a looooooooooong time. all i could think of is that while what i saw was a luscious jeep that was everything i wanted and more, i had absolutely no idea what was going on the inside, what the guts were like. and really who knows, maybe that car had never stalled before and will never stall again, but it was enough to remind me that what we think we want, is not always any better than what we already have. side note: that dude driving the jeep was def happily picking away at his nose while sitting there waiting for traffic and seemed pretty content to me, just fyi.
the old christian saying, something like: without God it's like you have a hole in your heart, and you try to fill it with everything, but nothing will make you feel whole, unless it's Him, is pretty darn true. i want that jeep, but i know it won't make me happy. and i know that there are lots of things in this world that seem pretty awesome, and sure, in theory i would love to "have it all".
it seems to me that some people are "only" people. if i only had this house, if i only had that boyfriend, if only i had that job, if only i could weigh that much, if i only could make that much money, if only i had married that girl when i had the chance, if only i could be smarter, if only i would have done better in school, if only i wouldn't have given up so soon... desires. we think that would have been so much better if we would have done something differently, or not done something at all. or maybe we think it's just not something that we could attain or be, even if we tried. there's just no winning, right? you can't change the past, and with this frame of mind, you can't change the future either.
if that's your perspective then you will have a very hard time being happy. you're looking for something outside/inside of yourself to bring you to this perfect place, zen or something like that, as if even if you got to that "place" of happiness, that you'd be able to maintain that for the rest of time, unaffected by the storms of life.
so here i go, back to where i started. we just need so much. but we don't do we? is it hard to remember that some days? when you see that jeep and start to daydream about all of the mountains you could climb and all of the puddles you could splash through, yeah, it can be hard to remember. but when you stop for a second, just think, there is only one thing that fulfills us. one thing. and it's not greener grass :)
