"One Habit of a Semi-Ineffective Person"

Ever read Covey's SEVEN HABITS... ? One of his big things is this idea of your "circle of influence" or "control". The thought that you can't control your circumstances, but you can ALWAYS control your response to them. Most days, I really like that thought: I can control my emotions; I can exert my will over my response to a given day. It's a good feeling.

But then there's today...

Where did I get this morose tendency to wallow in -- even love (?) -- my anger and depression? I wake up and it takes one misstep and not only am I in a foul mood, on some strange, pathological level, I LIKE IT!!! My thinking goes all wacko, and I begin to think that Stephen Covey is way off the mark (as Spike Lee would say, "Stephen Covey, stop smokin that crack!"). I start to think, "No, it's GOOD to be angry, it's good to feel this way; it makes me human." But that's a crock of s*##, isn't it? When I see the little damage I inflict on my children with my little verbal assaults to just try and get them out the door for school, I realize THAT can't be right, either.

I wonder when my thinking went this way. It is a genetic handoff from my mother, a piece of the emotional brokenness that has ranged through her family? I don't remember when things began to turn. I'm mature enough to know that I can't shrug my shoulders and claim, "Well, I'm an artist, and that's just who I am." No, who I AM is a busted up sinner who can't get it together. But this MUST come from somewhere.

I see this "To Do" list, and I don't want to do it, whether it's in my Circle of Influence or not. I just want to go back to bed, but I know that the solutions won't "just happen."

I.
am.
stressed.