Angry Birds

I'm feeling very grouchy all of the sudden. Must be hormonal. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Actually, I woke up feeling fine, but then someone on FB said something that irritated me and now everything's irritating me. Here's my list:

My computer's too slow.
There's something in my eye.
I ran out of Advil.
Why do I keep buying new plants? Now I have to water them all.
The birds keep pooping on my deck.
This one person at work is making every day so hard.
I didn't get enough sleep.
Why is Purple Rain on the radio? I'm not in the mood.
I have to paint the walls, but I'm so tired.
I'm lonely and I want every one to leave me alone.
Why is that thing still in my eye?!

Oh I don't know, there's a million of them and they're all rolling through my head. Not a very impressive list, but they sure are making me angry... gotta be the hormone thing. All I have to do is remind myself of all the positives in my life, but that silly list of negatives seems to be taking up a lot of space. I've been to Africa, China, Mexico... I've seen poverty... I've seen children dying in their mothers arms cause they didn't have 79 cents to buy medicine. I've been sick myself, so sick I practically lived in the ER and now I'm doing so much better, so with all that to be grateful for, why is that one person at work taking up such a huge space in my brain? Ugh!

So I tell someone how I feel, and they concur, and just for a moment, I feel better. "Ok," I tell myself. "It's not just me... this person is making a miserable work environment." But then I feel bad. I did one of the things I hate most... I gossiped. A lot of people think gossip is just sharing personal info about someone, but I know better. It's saying something about them that you probably wouldn't say to their face. I heard a song on the radio yesterday talking about how we cut people down with a sword we were never intended to pick up. I felt convicted. I just want to not feel stressed and anxious, but this person is standing in the way of my peace... or at least that's what I tell myself, but what is factual? The actuality is, I am standing in the way of my peace. How do I live at peace? Same as always. I love, I forgive... each day... each and every new offense.

Breathe, Beth, breathe. There are 24 hours in a day. Your thoughts are going to be spinning for about 18 hours of that. Choose what you are going to dwell on.