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My Own Kind Of Beautiful




Engines running, while wheels are stuck static in a traffic rut. I spy a scale of negative facial arrangements. Blank. Bored. Submissive. Resigned. Irritated. Aggravated. Angry. Here and there, music plays, a happy carload bounces with seated dances and karaoke voices howl from wound down windows. My guess is correct. They are indeed, young people. I hope they can keep this feeling, not as a nostalgia; as a sustained part of their older lives.
My least favoured expression; on a face, in a voice, lurking in a mind; is dissatisfaction. It is the enemy of appreciation.
Mr is facing the enemy today, trying to track down a parcel, following a trail of expensive unhelpful phone numbers. He is already irritated. On a number of occasions I too have made a customer service manager feel like they have earned their annual salary in just one day.
‘No, I’m afraid I did not make a record of the name of the employee to whom I spoke. This is because I was under the delusion that you employed competent people, that maybe you had given them some sort of rudimentary training, a delusion which has now been addressed; which is why I am now talking to the manager. Are you competent or should I ask for the CEO?’  
The fight of it can be rather fun. It digressed me. Back to point: back to the traffic queue.
The people sat, trapped and fuming, are reliant on an external factor for their mood. Maybe they were already having a bad time, and along comes this frustration, the queue represents frustration, they hate it. I can’t spy all of their lives, just this. There is little they can do to change this, short of abandoning the car, which is unlikely to solve the problem. External factors aren’t always controllable, and sometimes the control of them can take over a life; eating disorders are a prime example of that. If you are not your own kind of beautiful, no diet can help: nor any helpline, or book, or relationship, nor any open clear road.
For me; what it all boils down to in my know-it-all soup pot; what I observe is people feeling that they are missing out on something. It is true. They are missing out on their own lives. No-one else gets to see through your eyes. Do you honestly think that is not extraordinary? Just because it is true of everyone? Extraordinary is commonplace: in the ordinary, lies the extraordinary. One is still alive, in this queue, and one is significantly alive if able to appreciate the view.

[Here is someone who helped me realize and value what I was looking at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl]
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Comments

Geo. said…
Especially impressed with photo taken thru sunglasses --extraordinary effect accomplished with ordinary things.
31 May 2012 at 13:00
Stephanie V said…
Your post should be required reading! And I love that photo. Imagination can make such a big effect in a photo - and in life.
31 May 2012 at 16:52
Suze said…
‘No, I’m afraid I did not make a record of the name of the employee to whom I spoke. This is because I was under the delusion that you employed competent people, that maybe you had given them some sort of rudimentary training, a delusion which has now been addressed; which is why I am now talking to the manager. Are you competent or should I ask for the CEO?’

Hwah! :D
31 May 2012 at 21:46
Lisa Southard said…
Thank you all :-) Amazing what you come up with when stuck in traffic!
I very much enjoyed the phone retort- recall the conversation ending pleasantly :-)
31 May 2012 at 22:47
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