An Ace Up Your Sleeve

Generally, I think having an ace up your sleeve would mean you've got a great solution to a problem. I've got no problem with having a character say that. Someone who has an ace up their sleeve is the winner. Right?

However, the darker meaning would be that somebody cheated.

Is this good?

Cheating death is a good thing.

Your lying, cheating heart is not good.

How can cheating be both good and bad?

Maybe thinking of something as good or bad isn’t the point. Maybe the idea is that you learned something more important.

Okay, think about it another way. What about good and bad? They are opposites. What about teams? Is one better than the other? One wins and the other one loses. Does this make the loser a loser for all time?

Perhaps this might suggest that life lessons are always difficult. When we say something bad or harrowing happened to us, trying to find something good about a bad situation would be to think of the whole thing as a life lesson. Why?

Well, pounding a square peg into a round hole is generally not thought of as an easy thing to do.

So, why are life lessons hard?

Maybe it's like that old definition of what insanity is—doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

I propose we allow ourselves some slack.

• Try it once; you get a result you don't want.
  Try it again, and you get the same result.
  Sit back and start thinking about it.

Think about it hard. Better yet, go into therapy and 'splain the problem to your friendly neighborhood therapist. Think about it. They pay them to think hard about things. They might have a suggestion for you. I'm not saying you're going to like the suggestion they propose, but you can certainly think about it.

It's human nature to want to stay in a rut. I think we like being there. If something wants to be somewhere, prying it out will take some effort. If solutions were as easy as we'd like them to be, well, there would be no need for deep thinking. Right?

We learn not to eat unripe fruit. Eat a bunch of unripe peaches, and I can almost guarantee you're going to get a stomachache. Who do you blame? The store? Your neighbor who gave you the fruit? No, you learned a lesson. Hopefully, you learn what a piece of fruit looks like when it is ripe.

If you buy your bananas at the store and they are green, you will learn that they taste better if they've had a couple of days on your kitchen counter. You learn that as they continue to ripen and turn yellow, they will get tiny brown dots on them. That's the sugar showing up. It means they are going to taste good. The longer they ripen, the softer they are going to get. That, dear one, is when you make some banana nut bread. Good stuff and quick to make.

Here's what I think. Always point your compass North. Think peace. Think plenty. Think love. Accept your life lessons and learn that when so-and-so always shows up, you get a headache. It might be their cologne, but more, I think, there is something going on between you and that person that needs thinking about. Yes, you could walk away, but if this is a relative or somebody you work with, it would be worth your while to try to figure it out.

You might ask why they can’t change. Well, they could, but you are not in charge of them, are you? When you accept responsibility for your own life you also realize that you cannot change anybody else’s behavior. I’m talking adults, here.

Putting this another way. Whose fault is it that you keep ending up with the wrong partner? Is it something in the water? Were you born under a cloud of confusion? Is it the wi-fi? Nope. None of that.

Somebody taught you that being a particular way was the way to conduct your life. Now that you know, what do you do about it? Welcome to life. You get to figure this out on your own. It might take months. It might take years. It’s not an on-off switch. Change happens gradually. Nobody is going to do it for you. You have to do it yourself. You can be a different way.

So, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Think good thoughts. Journaling helps with this, so do that more often. Ask to talk to a therapist. There are lots out there.

Best of all? I think you’ll do it. I really do.

So, who cares if somebody has an ace up their sleeve? You do it your way. That’s what is more important.

Thanks for reading.
Pauline Evanosky