I had a giggle fit yesterday. Not the kind that makes you laugh under your nose and heave your chest for a brief moment, but the knee-slapping, I'm-going-to-get-in-an-accident-if-I-don't-pull-over kind of laugh attack. It wasn't a funny radio commentary or a newspaper comic that made me explode with laughter. It was me.
Since Wednesday, I had been feeling a little down. There was no tangible reason for my funk -- just a black cloud hanging over my head saying wicked things like "You loser" and "hey, punk, who bought you that jacket?" I even responded a few times to these insults, but the reaction was always the same. Wild, frivolous gaiety at my expense.
Not that I am crazy or anything. I usually have conversations with myself. We all do. But this week in particular I felt as if I had done so much and had little to show for it. It was a moment in which I asked myself, "What am I doing this for?"
We all occasionally slip up. I'm the first to admit it. But what I realized, what made me laugh so hard, was the fact that I am often blinded by my own ambition. I found myself fretting over four books I wanted to write at once, three translations I should have gotten done yesterday, two magazine articles that are within my grasp, "If I only work hard enough" and two children I am trying to raise with a value system that honors themselves and every living thing on the Earth.
It had gotten to be a bit too much. So I pulled over and laughed and laughed. What else could I do?




