Irony

Some of the richest humor I derive is that which is ironic. The surprise of what I think is one thing and often is another, never ceases to amaze me. As a younger, more angry man, when things didn't go the way I'd hoped, I would often, foolishly over react. As I have matured I, one, don't set my expectations nearly as high, and often shadow them with a touch of bleaker outcome to lesson the sting, and two, when they don't go my way, try to find the humorous side through the irony of it all.

This morning, I was supposed to meet with my daughter's teachers and guidance counselor at 8:15. Last night at 6:45, we got the obligatory call that there would be a two hour delay for all county schools. I tried to reach the guidance department to verify if the appointment would be affected, but naturally there wasn't anyone there. So, I showed up at the appointed time this morning. I assumed that we likely wouldn't meet the teachers then, but I couldn't reach anyone sooner, and decided to err on the side of caution. As suspected, no one was there at 8:15. So I took my daughter out for breakfast and returned two hours later for what I anticipated to be a now 10:15 appointment. Her guidance counselor passed me a couple of times, and after the third pass, I stopped her and inquired about our appointment. She said it was cancelled because of the delay. I tried to explain to her that a heads up would have been nice, and she dismissed my comment rather quickly, it's not her problem. I tried to explain to her, that part of the lesson I was trying to teach my daughter is responsibility. When you commit to something, you are "committed". It means you are obligated to follow through with a level of dedication. You don't just blow something off because there is no level of importance. When you say you are going to do something, you do it. If not, what is the point of making the commitment to begin with. The counselor rudely kept talking over me, so I asked her, "How can you listen to what I am saying, if you keep trying to speak when I am speaking?" She interrupted me yet again! The old me, would have raised my voice at that point. Instead, I accepted the irony of this whole situation, and simply resigned to, "Can we please just reschedule the appointment?" I knew I would get no where with this woman, except angry. Irony helped me relax a little.

After leaving the school, I went to a jewelry store. I was selling off my wedding band. This particular style of ring is called a Gimmel ring. http://www.custom-celtic.com/celt-gimmel.htm While the symbolism is very beautiful, it is the ugliest, most uncomfortable ring. Being in landscaping and having to hold power tools or working with stone, it would often dig into my adjoining fingers. I used to joke that sometimes love is painful. Again, irony. When my wife ordered these from a website, I was told we were getting the platinum set, and I gave her the money for the purchase. Today, after visiting three separate jewelers, I was informed by each jeweler, that it was only 14k white gold. The ex was horribly irresponsible with money, sticking to a budget was not her strong suit. So when I walked out today with my paltry sum of $127, I could only laugh again at the irony of the whole thing.

I have a lot of things going on right now, that haven't gone my way. A lot of them, admitedly, are a product of my own foolishness and lack of vigilant scrutiny, and others are due to the incompetence and stupidity of others. I could let these affect me in a way that would only make me look more foolish, or I can chuckle to myself about it and just move on. Seeing how the foolish behavior has never made the situation better, I am picking the latter. Maybe I am finally learning something, because I am a lot more at ease now than I could possibly imagined to be.

Hopefully for those of you reading this, you have learned these lessons a long time ago. If you haven't learned how to avoid loosing your cool, try looking at things differently. It really does make a big difference.