Wishful Thinking

We just got new carpet installed in the downstairs of our house.  Last night after the installers left, we spent almost an hour walking around downstairs, sitting on the floor, and sinking our fingers into the lushness of brand new, thick carpet.  We talked about decorating ideas, and how much the new carpet really made a difference in sprucing up the rooms.  We were in utter bliss.

This morning I went downstairs and saw that my cat had peed on the new carpet.

Blissful feelings shattered.


Here's the thing.  We have been having issues with the cat wanting to pee on the carpet for about a month now (and yes, I'm taking her to the vet to rule out a UTI).  But the peeing problem is neither here nor there.  I had actually managed to convince myself that once the new carpet was in, once the old, nasty, no-good original carpet and pad were totally gone from the house, that things would return to normal and all would be be pretty and perfect because, well, why wouldn't they be? 

I have always been in the habit of convincing myself that the addition of something new, exciting, and positive in my life will somehow eliminate some of the negative.  I suppose in some cases this might be true, but at the same time I have a hard time reminding myself that just because something gets upgraded in my life (in my case, the carpet), it doesn't necessarily mean that everything will upgrade (as in my cat finally deciding to stop peeing on the carpet). 

It's very frustrating for me because I tend to base my thinkings with a lot of "if" "then" statements.  Using the same carpet scenario, I figured "If the old stinky carpet is gone, then the cat will use her litterbox all the time, not just part of the time."

False.

What is my point?  My point is that wishful thinking and/or wishful reasoning seldom ever works in the real world and in real situations.  What it usually does is trick us into believing something and allowing us to convince ourselves that everything will be better once a certain thing happens....which most of the time ends up being a complete falsity.

It's the same type of thing when you leave work on Friday afternoon.  All the problems and things you have to do magically disappear over the weekend, and you think to yourself how great everything is and how wonderful it is to have all this time on your hands.  It's almost as if the magical bliss of the weekend will erase all the to-do's of your working life. 

Then you go back on Monday.  There are still emails to respond to, phone calls to make, and deadlines to meet.  And yet somehow you can't help but remember how peaceful and great the weekend was and wonder how in the world things suddenly got so crazy.

I keep hoping that one of these days the addition of positive forces in my life will manage to cancel out everything negative.  I realize this is probably unproductive thinking, but it's hard to eliminate those hopeful desires completely.

I think this also ties in with our tendancies as humans (possibly even our laziness), to want for things to get done with little or no effort from ourselves.  We might not always admit this, but we all know it's true for everyone at some point.  I mean, how great is it to get something accomplished and crossed off the list without having to sacrifice any of our own time and energy to the project?

It's about the same as thinking if you avoid something long enough it will either go away or get resolved, when chances are it will only get worse.

What does all this mean?  Overall I suppose we (okay, "I") should come to grips with the fact that changing things in our lives, for better or for worse, usually requires some kind of action on our part.  Things will definitely not always magically appear or disappear just because we want them to, and the rule of a positive cancelling out a negative tends to be false reasoning.

Looks like my cat may be spending a lot more time outside.