Is it better to Burn Out than to Fade Away?

I'm not exactly planning to do either, but what I really wanted to title this blog post was "I got nothin' to say"... which immediately transposed itself to Clancy Brown's gravelly voice quoting the Def Leppard line in the original Highlander movie.

So maybe this is a free-association post. I had a thought; I was on a particular train of thought; my train got derailed; the wheels of the bus go round-and-round; Magic Bus; take you on a magic carpet ride

Hey, Mister Tambourine-Man, play a song for me...

no, I really don't know where any of that came from just now.

We have a "Challenge of the Week" at Warner Bros., and since I typically work on weekends only (of late), I get to learn about the new challenge on Sundays and then forget all about it until I return to work on Saturday, having not really "implemented" it into my tours in any particular way, because I wasn't there to do so. For the month of February, our Challenge is to list three positive things that happened today. Yes, it's a Challenge for the whole month. I don't know if we'll get a new, additional challenge tomorrow; I'll find out when I get there.

Here's the thing. I tend to be the first person in the room to Count my Blessings. I'm just typically the most optimistic person I know, even when I'm in the throes of a depression. But last Sunday was a truly horrible day of giving tours, because it was in the wind and rain, and I was soaked to the bone almost immediately, and I have no galoshes or any other water-repellant footwear that I could have worn for giving tours, so my feet were also incredibly uncomfortable all day, no matter how much relief I was able to find for the rest of my body. Last Sunday was the start of that "Challenge of the Week" which is becoming a Challenge of the Month.

Here is a recap of my Blessings for last Sunday:

1. God is washing my car for me. Thanks, God!
2. I'm too "petite" for any of the available raingear.
3. My misery makes people laugh.

.., and so forth. I was somehow able to list a total of SEVEN "good things" that happened last Sunday, but not one of them was really a good thing. So when I got in to my morning meeting today, I was handed a small sheet of paper to write down three good things that had happened to me, either today or yesterday, and I had a hard time thinking of anything better than "getting enough sleep", "blogging daily", and "hubby made good soup". Found out after I'd written my three things that we weren't expected to hand in those pieces of paper, we were just being reminded to count our blessings.

Frankly, I'm a bit put off by this exercise. I understand that it's meant to contribute to all-day positivity, which will of course spread joy into our tours, especially if we're interacting with other like-minded individuals. But I'm really feeling like this is something that Management may not have a right to "force" onto Labor. I'm not sure about it. To take it out of that workplace context, it still feels wrong. How does it make you feel, when you're having a totally shit day, for people around you to remind you that, no matter how bad things get, you're still blessed and that you should be grateful and mindful of those blessings? I'll tell you how it makes me feel. It makes me feel like you've somehow never had a shitty day like I'm having, and if you keep telling me to smile, I might just have to punch you in your damn teeth. Argh.

This is not at all where I intended to go tonight. But, as I said, maybe this particular post is going to be an experiment in free association. Magic Bus. Free Love. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Oh, yeah... every time I open my browser (on my imdb page, of course), I'm lately seeing an ad for Chi-Raq, and that ad sends me back to the hippy-dippy 60's (in my mind, at least). It's starting to come into focus. Hmm.

Maybe I'll attempt to list three good things each day for the next week (starting tomorrow, of course). Maybe we'll see if the goal they've set at the Bros. can be obtained in the real world. They're calling it the Tetris Effect. Wish me luck!