Decisions

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. The decisions we make determine the kind of people we are. They determine the lives we lead. They also determine how we effect the world.  I know it is pretty elementary stuff. It is something I hope most of us figure out pretty early in life. I know a lot of people who haven’t.  There are some people who sometimes I want to shake and tell them to stop making the worst possible decisions. Sometimes, I make the worst possible decisions, and I know people I love watch from the sidelines and want to shake me. Life is a series of decisions.

Bad decisions were made here. Not pointing fingers.

There is this older man who works the grocery part of the Braum’s in Chickasha named Jack. I worked at Braum’s for nearly a year, and it sucked. It really, really, really sucked. I did his job, and it was the most suck of the suck in some ways.  Anyway, Jack, every single time I go into Braum’s to pick up just enough groceries to keep me from having to go to the super Wal-Mart for just a few more days and Jack is working, Jack is happy and bright. He smiles, makes jokes, and is just crazy friendly. A lot of times I’m kind of cranky when I go into the Braum’s, but Jack is impossible not smile back at. Jack is just one of those people.

There are these people in the world who makes everyone around them feel better. They make everyone they encounter have a better day. We live in this super jaded world, and happy, positive people are looked at suspiciously. Hope and caring are sometimes treated like sheer stupidity. If you don’t spend your life protected and cynical you are going to get screwed and treated like a sucker. If you believe that good things can happen or that people do want to be good then you are obviously unaware of the reality of the world. Trust me. I’m one of those oblivious suckers who sometimes gets treated like I have brain damage.

I have to make the decision in life if I want to be smart and guarded or risk getting hurt by being optimistic and happy. The second is a lot scarier. When I really think about it, though, I realize I lose very little by believing the best. I get taken advantage of sometimes. I get hurt sometimes. In the long term, pain is mostly temporary. Being wrong and looking like an ass is a lot less terrible than being isolated in my old armor.

I want to be like Jack.