We Are All Difficult At Times

We all have good moods and bad moods, our ups and downs, all day long.

When we’re up, our finer qualities emerge.  We are more generous, courageous, empathic and loving. Life looks good.

When we’re down – and we all get down regularly – we wrestle with difficult thoughts and feelings. We get insecure, doubtful, impatient, anxious.  And we fall into reactive behaviors and clumsy coping mechanisms.

We get judgmental or nasty, grumpy or impatient, withdrawn or defensive.  We numb out, or bury ourselves in distraction.

And then the mood passes, and the fog clears. Better feelings re-emerge, and once again, we become the person we wish we could be all the time.

But alas, that’s not in the cards. We all fall short sometimes. Maybe even a lot of the time.

And it’s good to notice and appreciate that.

It’s good to be humble about the fact that we can be difficult – let’s face it, very difficult – at times. And it’s good to understand that every single human being in our life – our family, our spouses, our partners – needs the space to be difficult at times too. It’s part of being human.

We all fall short, on a regular basis.

Recognizing this, understanding this, smooths out the rough edges. It helps us take bad moods and crappy behavior less seriously. It softens their blow, and makes it all less jarring and disturbing.

And that helps us bounce back and move on.

Just as it’s human to have our lows, it’s human to return to a better place, to recognize our foibles and be humble about them, and to be kind, generous and understanding towards others in the face of our common humanity.