Don’t be afraid
Open your mouth to say
Say what your soul sings to you

Your mind can never change
Unless you ask it to
Lovingly rearrange
The thoughts that make you blue
The things that bring you down
Will mean no harm to you
And so make your choice joy
The joy belongs to you

And when you do
You’ll find the one you love is here
You’ll find you
The love yeah

Don’t be ashamed no
To open your heart and pray
Say what your soul sings to you

So no longer pretend
That you can’t feel it near
That tickle on your hand
That tingle in your ear
And ask it anything
Because it loves you dear
It’s your most precious king
If only you could hear

And when you do
You’ll find the one you need is here
You’ll find you
Love you

–What Your Soul Sings, Massive Attack

When good things happen to us, we become suspicious, questioning the veracity of the moment.  We wonder if what’s in front of us is too good to be true.  We seek out the catch, the fine print, the hidden price for what’s being offered us.

When bad things happen, we may question, “Why me?” but we accept that the bad things happen.  It’s an every day occurance.

I lost my wallet.  Damn it.  I guess that’s just the way it goes.

You want to offer me a great deal on the car that I want — in fact, need, as my old beater finally gave up the ghost?  Okay: what am I not seeing? What are you going to pull on me here?

Why do we do this?  Do we not deserve the good things in life?  Do we bring so much bad on ourselves that the good seems undeserved?

I’m as guilty as anyone else of this, but I’d like to not be. I don’t want to be suspicious of the good things in my life.

It took me a long time and a fair amount of effort to get past the point of stressing about things I can’t control. I realized that I was missing out on a lot of the present by either obsessing about the past or worrying about the future — one which I can’t change, and one over which I have very little control — and so I fixed that.  But now I wonder how much I might be passing up in the world because I think I don’t deserve it, or that it goes against the rules and expectations set up by society-at-large.

Especially given my proclivity to ignore those same rules and expectations.

Little by little, I’m learning, I think, how to make a world that is, if not better, then at least a little happier.