Be careful what you wish for

We've all heard the old saying, "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it." This is a corollary to another saying, "The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence."

What we don't hear very often is that sometimes the grass IS greener on the other side of the fence. We don't like to admit that because, especially in this part of the country, people seem to be into permanence. Once you make your bed, you sleep in it whether it's comfortable or not. People are into commitment; once you promise someone something, you don't go back on your word, even though things aren't the same now as they were when you made that promise.

And therein lies one of the great conundrums of life because people change, situations change and lives change.

The world we live in is dynamic, not static. What we felt or believed last month or last year or 10 years ago can change and usually does change. Should we be honor bound to live up to a commitment when we're 44 that we made when we were 18? Some people say yes we should because a commitment is a commitment. Others say there's no such thing as a life-long commitment because we can't see into the future. We may have meant what we said when we were 18 but we don't mean it any more.

If we live up to it even though it no longer makes us happy, does that mean we're supposed to be unhappy for the rest of our lives?

This is a significant moral question to many people because we've been taught to live up to our promises, even though sometimes that isn't feasible or even doable. We change, they change, life changes. How can anyone expect to NOT change?

Some people's situations improve. Some folks grow in their relationships. Some grow in their jobs, their professions or their occupations. Some people grow in their houses or their home towns. The more we're there, the more we like being there. I'm fortunate to have a job I love. I never tire of going to work. I never tire of engaging the minds of young people. I told a class today that I hoped they looked forward even half as much to attending my class as I look forward to teaching it. Some of my students never get it but some do because enthusiasm tends to be contagious. Any student with any desire to learn something at all will be hard pressed to not enjoy going to a class the teacher loves to teach and will be just as reluctant on the other hand to try and learn anything from a teacher who's just going through the motions.

The same thing happens in relationships. Some grow and prosper, some wither and die. Dick and Ann Trail were perfect role models for the younger students in my Love and Relationships class last semester because they exemplified the idea of love everlasting. Based on the things Dick and Ann wrote and said in that class, I'm convinced they fall in love with each other every single day all over again. But a lot of people don't. Loving relationships are like the branches on a tree. Sometimes the branches grow together and sometimes they grow apart. When they grow together, the love two people share becomes better and stronger every day.

But when they grow apart, we find ourselves stuck in dead-end relationships that give us no joy or pleasure at all and yet we stick with them because that's what we've been taught to do. We were told that life isn't always a bowl of cherries and that sometimes we just have to persevere even though we get no pleasure or reward out of doing so.

I think we got bad advice back then if that's what we were taught. I don't think anyone should stay in anything that doesn't bring them a certain degree of happiness and satisfaction. If you hate your job or your relationship or your house or your car or your hometown, then you need to make a change and try and find a little happiness in your life.

We're only here for a little while and, while we're here, we owe it to ourselves to find happiness and contentment wherever it may be, especially if we're miserable in our current state. And, if we are, we're making those around us miserable too.

I believe most of all in what Gene Wilder said at the end of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." He asked the little boy and his grandfather who had won the grand prize if they knew what happened to the guy who finally got everything he ever wanted and when they said they didn't, he said,

"He lived happily ever after."