“You’ve certainly been happy,” the woman said. “I can always count on you to cheer me up. You seem like you haven’t got a care in the world.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. I was in the middle of a conversation with someone who I see a couple of times a week. She’s bright and mature enough — at least 50 years old — to have experienced a lot of life. She’s no dummy. As a restaurant owner, she deals with people constantly — and she knows me pretty well from our frequent conversations.
We had been talking about how it’s easy to tell how unhappy some people are. She chose me as the counter-example to make her point. She said I always seem especially happy.
“What makes you think you know me?!” I wanted to scream.
It was an oddly alienating moment for me Friday night when this happened. Instead of lashing out, I just asked why she thought what she did. Then I briefly told her I’m actually quite miserable lately.
She thought I was kidding, so I dropped it.
What would your obit say about you — if you could write it yourself?
What did you want in childhood? Did you abandon those dreams?
Houston kindergarten kids required to learn: ‘Barack Obama is the man’
We never get enough of whatever lets us feel safe being ourselves
We find meaning in responsibility, not in pursuit of empty pleasures
Jobs are created from ‘selfish’ acts; they don’t just exist on their own
When we don’t feel understood, we feel lonely even in a crowd
Some of us don’t seem ‘wired up’ to stay sane working for others
Shame almost got me fired — and shame still haunts me years later