Open-Book Exams Are The Hardest

So, we celebrated Thanksgiving, and watched our family's favorite Thanksgiving movie.

The three eldest children did an excellent job of helping me to prepare The Dinner. It was delicious. After watching the movie, we (me and DH) flopped into bed in a tryptophan-induced coma, assured by our offspring that they would put the food away; something that they had done before... usually because they want to stay up late and watch DVDs while they work.

In the morning, as is my custom the day after Thanksgiving, I walked into the kitchen to nosh on T-Day leftovers, and I couldn't find them. As the children woke up and staggered into the kitchen, I interrogated them about the location of the food.

It turns out, that the food was neatly bagged up and stashed in a portable oven on the kitchen table.

Overnight. With neither heat nor refrigeration to keep it from spoiling.

So, all of it had to be thrown out. Food that would have meant 'no cooking' for the weekend - gone.

I'd like to tell you that I was grateful that I had discovered the spoiled food first, so no one had eaten it and gotten sick.

I'd like to tell you that we opened up a few boxes of cold cereal, ate it and had a good laugh.

But, like I said in the post title, open-book exams are the hardest.

Not because the material is not available, but because you have to know how to locate and access the material in the time allotted, and show a mastery of it as well.

I failed the test.

Why?

Because, instead of doing what I should have done (been grateful, laughed it off), I lost my temper and blew my stack.

Never mind that it was a mistake, and that the children had just as much work invested in the meal as I had. Never mind that they felt as bad about it as I did, and that yelling about it wasn't going to change anything. And I won't even think about the money that was wasted in throwing that food out - it was much less than doctor and/or hospital bills for food poisoning!

Nope - I didn't stop, take a deep breath, or think.

I just reacted. From a place of fear.

Why? I've never been hungry. I've never gone without food. There has always been food to eat when I was hungry.

But somewhere, I picked up this fear that there won't be any more food if what I have is wasted. I don't mean that it is ok to waste food, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just thinking that I could have messed up a perfectly enjoyable day for our family by letting my fears grab the upper hand.

The only reason that the day wasn't destroyed wasn't because of me - it was because the children had been listening (when I'm not acting like a crazy person, lol!) to what I've been trying to do, so they apologized for their error, and ignored the rest of my rant.

Once I calmed down, we made some turkey stew (there was a little bit that was kept hot all night), and everything settled back on an even keel. We even had fun the rest of the day.

So, time to get back on that horse, and get to work. I will be counting to ten (slooowwwwwllly) before I speak, to give my brain a chance to catch up with my mouth (maybe I'll have to count verrrrrrryyyyyyyyy slooowwwwwllly, lol!!)

Open-Book Exams Are The Hardest

What I Learned Today

Is that to have empathy for others' pain and suffering is important. Even if you don't know what it is. What? How do I do that? By being patient and compassionate with others' mistakes and weaknesses. Many times, people are going through something unpleasant, and it affects how they interact with others. Or they have been through something in the past, and now they are less trusting, less willing to reach out to others. In any event, they are unlikely to explain themselves, and may act in ways that do not seem to make any sense, if you do not know what is going on/has gone on in their lives.

If you are kind and compassionate anyway, no matter what anyone else does, your humanity remains intact. You have choices... you have to live with what you choose to do with them.

One of the things that I heard was that, in the United States, we are here because we, or someone before us, went through hardship and difficulty, or else they would have stayed where they were :-). I had never thought much about it, but this statement is true. The circumstances that happened that moved us, or our ancestors, to where we are today, are and/or were blessings in disguise.

How can you say that?

Well, think of it this way. We are the ground. The harvest (blessing) is represented by the seed. To properly grow the seed, the ground needs to be prepared, which means breaking it up or plowing it (trouble or difficulty), and then planting the seed. Then the waiting begins, for the harvest. Then, the harvest is ready. But, if the ground was not plowed, if trouble had not come into that person's life, the seed (blessing) would not have been planted, and they would not have reaped the harvest.

Every event in our lives shapes us into the people that we are - good, bad, or indifferent. *How* those events shapes us, depends on our outlook and beliefs.

Whew! This one is a hard one for me... It is true, it makes sense, but I don't want any more pain in my life. The little bit that I get is more than enough for me, but if the only way to break through to a bigger and better harvest is by going through difficulty (I'm going to say here, with grace), I will continue to endure [insert whine here].
©2007 LaVeda H. Mason All Rights Reserved.

What I Learned Today