Bitterness, the thief of happiness

There once was a man who drove to work each morning.  He spent his morning dealing with customers, making phone calls and keeping busy.  He did the things most people do each day at work.  This was not an unusual man.  Rather ordinary.  He liked ordinary things like drinking his morning coffee while reading through his social media site.

 When lunch time would come, he’d unwrap his ham and cheese sandwich.  The whole wheat brown bread was fresh and soft and the mayonnaise was lightly spread on both sides.  The honey ham folded ever so nicely with the sharp cheddar cheese.  

 As he unwrapped his sandwich each afternoon, the man would take his first bite and bitterly think, I wish I had something else besides this stupid ham sandwich.  With each bite of the sandwich more bitter thoughts would unfold in his mind.  By the end of lunch each day what was once a happy man would transform into a short-tempered bitter man.  It was like the ham and cheese poisoned his day.

 A co-worker once stopped by his desk and commented that his sandwich looked delicious.  This unsuspecting co-worker was unprepared for the bitterness that unfolded from such a simple comment.  The man told the co-worker of his internal disappointment that each day his wife packed him the same sandwich, ham and cheese on whole wheat bread with mayonnaise.  The co-worker asked him, what would you rather have for lunch each day?

 This simple question lead to much self-discovery.  You see the man figured out that he’d rather have last night’s dinner left overs.  When his co-worker asked him why he didn’t pack the left overs, another discovery was made.  You see the man’s wife cleaned the kitchen each night and threw all the left overs away each night.  The man never asked her not to.  The man never asked her to save the left overs for his lunch.  The man never told her he didn’t like mayonnaise on his sandwiches.  When his co-worker asked him why he never told his wife his preference, the man made another discovery.  You see, his wife never asked him what his preference was.  As he told his co-worker that his wife never cared enough to ask him his preferences, the man discovered, he wasn’t bitter about the ham and cheese sandwich or even the mayonnaise.  What he was bitter about was that his wife didn’t care enough to ask him his preference.

 You see bitterness can set into our lives when we fail to communicate with those we love.  Bitterness can poison our happiness.  Through self-exploration it is possible to discover that it’s not always about the sandwich but rather sometimes it’s an underlying factor that’s contributing to our bitterness.