Learning to deal with the wasps

My husband is really to blame for this. Really, he is.  Recently, he got me addicted to Mafia Wars on Facebook.

Yes, yes, it is a violent game with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  That is what I said. Still, I enjoy doing the “jobs,”  and doing the “boss fights.”  What I don’t do, however, is go up against the other players in the fighting section. That is not the part I like.  For one thing, I’m a little to good at placing myself in the other player’s place. You are sitting there at your computer, doing jobs and getting ready to go up against the big boss, when all of a sudden, all your cash is gone and you don’t have a prayer at defeating the boss, because your health is down to 10/120.

A wasp has just attacked you. Irriating, and keeping you from getting the work you are trying to do done.

I have a point to all this, I assure you.

You can’t win if you don’t play.  I have heard that phrase time and time again over my life.  But sometimes, you aren’t allowed a choice as to whether to play or not.

Mafia Wars is just a game, but we all deal with the wasps everyday.  At work. At the grocery store.  At the amusement park. Wherever we choose to go, there are wasps.  People who keep us from doing the tasks and goals we feel we need to accomplish.  And all along, not realizing they are actually creating the ripple everyone sees in the water. Not owning their part in the disaster unfolding.

I can stop playing Mafia Wars, and in fact, I probably should.  Gets my blood pressure up a bit too much, I think.  But I can’t get rid of the wasps. Not unless I want to live in a cave the rest of my life.

So what do we do about the wasps?  I think all we can do is learn to identify waspish behavior in ourselves and nip it out when we see it.

The wasps are going to come. They are going to stop us at work and delay that project that we know really needed to be done yesterday, but got dumped in our laps this morning. The are going to shove their way in front of us at the check out line at Walmart. So what do we do?  Do we put up with it?  Do we yell and snarl at them, and say they can’t do that to me!

I think this is up to the individual.  For some, putting up with the wasps just means getting stung more. For others, yelling about it just attracts more wasps.

For my part, I just want to get through it without becoming a wasp myself.  So if you see me acting the part of the wasp, hindering you, hurting you all the while being completely oblivious to it, let me know, okay?  I’ll do what I can to stop.  Because I wouldn’t want to be a wasp.

The Oklahoma City Zoo

I spent the day at the Oklahoma City Zoo with my husband.  It was positively balmy outside at 85 degrees, so the animals were reasonable active.

I love the zoo.  Shortly after we first got married, we got  a zoo pass and have just kept it up over the years. It’s a whole days activity that is paid for with just a handful of visits, and so by this time of the year, it is like we get in for  free.

I suppose ethically, like most people, I have issues with the zoo. On one hand,  it helps endangered species, on the other, its captivity, and for the most part, the animals don’t seem all that thrilled to be there.

Necessary evils.  They are out there, all over the place.  And the  government is only the start there.  I suppose that is why I love the zoo so much. Look into purity and light, you will always find a dark spot somewhere.  The dark is no less beautiful than the light, it’s just different.

And necessary evil is evil used for the purpose of good, so that diminshes the evil quite a bit, don’t you think?