Choosing

In my last entry, I wrote about going shopping on Sunday’s with Papa and what a wonderful gift it is to be able to do that.  I could look at it as a task, a chore, something that I have to do every Sunday when I could be doing something else.  Or I could look at it as an opportunity to spend precious time with the patriarch of our family, the elder statesman, the only one who remembers the Civil War (just kidding, Papa).  I could look at it as a chance to do something good for another person, to do a mitzvah, to be a good human being.

We have had some pretty nasty weather here lately in Atlanta.  With apologies to my family in the north and northeast who have really gotten the brunt of the winter, it has been pretty cold here with rain and sleet.  Yesterday morning, it was particularly miserable outside as I made my way down I75 towards Midtown.  The sky was cloudy and gray, the wind was howling, the rain was falling at that annoying rate that is not hard enough to have the windshield wipers on low speed but there seemed to be no effective speed for the intermittent wiper setting either.  Traffic was, of course, heavy since some city planner decided a long time ago that Atlanta needed to have 2 interstate highways merge into one, just north of Midtown, to that everyone could enjoy the downtown skyline as they sat in a traffic jam.

So there I sat, listening to the Cobb Wind Symphony (the adult band in which I play the clarinet) on my iPOD, and pondering the situation.  As usual, I became introspective (I am good at that – at least I give myself credit for something, right?). The sky is gray and that is sad.  Why is that sad?  Since my last name is Gray, I have vivid childhood memories of the kids quoting a Clairol hair coloring TV commercial – “Hate that Gray, wash it away!”.  Why do they want to wash me away?  Oh, those kids were so kind to me.  It didn’t help matters much that I was fat and painfully shy.  Of all the names that my immigrant parents could have selected when they decided to change the family name, why did they have to pick a sad color?  Maybe life would have been different had my name been Robert Joyful!  Anyway, I digress.  So the sky was gray, the rain fell, the traffic snarled, and I felt blue (another color that denotes emotion, but I digress again).

Why should a gray sky affect my attitude?  What makes it a sad day?  Why should the weather determine how I choose to think and feel?  People have written great works of poetry and music that say things like “Blue, navy blue, I’m as blue as I can be”, or “When the rain comes, you run and hide your head, you might as well be dead”, or “I don’t mind those gray skies”, or “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down”.  It is obvious that there is some universal message here.  Or is it?  Wait!  What about these?  “I hear laughter in the rain, walking hand in hand with the one I love”, or “Just singing in the rain, what a glorious feeling, I’m happy again”, or “Blue skies shining at me, nothing but blue skies do I see”.

So what’s right?  Am I supposed to feel sad or happy because it is raining?  Is a gray sky sadder than a blue sky?  Maybe I should listen to those great philosophers, the Fab 4 (John, Paul, George, and Ring0).  According to The Beatles, “Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s alright”.  They’re the ones who told me to hide my head when the rain comes.  They must be right.  Look how many people listen to them.

So how should I feel?  It’s all up to me!  I have the power to choose how I feel.  I have the ability to determine my own course of action, my attitude, my direction.  I have an internal compass and I know where true north is.  I know which way I am going because my personal mission and my values are rock solid.  So here is what I choose.  The gray, rainy day is no different than any other day.  The gray, rainy day is as miraculous as any other day.  It provides me with 24 hours to live and breathe and do good things.  I have a gift of being able to love my family, to inspire and motivate people to do their best, to feel gratitude for the people in my life and my possessions.  It provides me with 24 hours to be the best husband, father, son-in-law, brother, and friend that I can be.  It is up to me to choose how I am going to feel and act, to choose what  I will do and what I will not do.

So my choice is to make the most of each day, whether the weather is sunny or gray. And now that I have written this entry, I have some things to get down around the house.  Chores? Yes, you could say that.  Opportunities to do good things? Yes, you could say that too.  I choose the latter description.

You have choices to make today.  Choose wisely!