I saw the above meme awhile back and have been allowing it way too much space in my head. Sometimes I read a quote and I need process it for a while to see why (1) it resonates with me, or (b) why it annoys the crap out of me.
This one did both.
I think it’s my “try to see both sides of everything” brain.
I had this problem when I took a couple of law classes in community college. As
is often the case in community colleges, the instructors were specialists in
the field; both of my instructors were lawyers. The first class I took was when
I was nineteen. The instructor was known for flunking as many students as he passed.
I was a late enrollee and he told me that nobody could start his class two
weeks in and pass the course. He agreed to sign off on my late enrollment if I didn’t
whine to him about failing. I got an A. Not to spite him, which I am totally
capable of doing. It was because the class was interesting, and I was willing
to put in the research on legal issues. And it seems because I analyzed (okay,
some might call it overthinking) the heck out of every case we studied. I could
easily present and argue both sides of the cases.
The second law class was when I was twenty-eight years old
and the instructor in that class pulled me aside at the end of the semester and
said, “If you ever decide to become a lawyer, look me up. You are the only
person I have met that I’d want to have as a partner.” My essay exam answers
were consistently long and would present an array of possibilities. This seemed
fine with him. Eventually, I discovered that he figured I was diving more
deeply into cases than other students. This impressed him. Ha! I was doing it because
I craved understanding both sides.
I mention this not as “Oh look at her so smart!” I mention it
as in “this is the only time that other people thought my overthinking anything
was a positive attribute.”
Back to the meme.
On the face of it, I think it is true that we should find
things that make us happy and live our lives as best we can in pursuit of happiness.
We shouldn’t be swayed by other people’s opinions in that regard. Keeping in
mind that we are talking about ethical choices. People who want to dance should
dance.
On the other hand, if it makes you happy to go into a school
and shoot students then you need to check yourself. School shootings have never
made sense to me (or anyone I personally know).
Some people are happy being cruel to other people by mocking
them or through physical and mental abuse. That would be a hard “no” as well when
applied to the above meme.
Hence the annoyed on my part. Annoyed with myself. I know
the person who made the original post did not mean it in any nasty, mean sense.
Not even an entitled sense.
Taking a sweet, harmless meme and twisting it into a hundred
other “what ifs” (as a courtesy to you dear reader, I only listed two) should
be an easy habit to give up. Here I am a month away from my year of transformation
and I am not sure I have transformed much…
Oh well, since overthinking makes me happy, then it doesn’t need to make sense to you (or anyone else).
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