Gimme a Peg Leg

"If you have a peg leg or hooks for hands then maybe its enough to simply keep on living. You know, bravely facing life with your disability. But without these things you're actually expected to make something of your life, achieve something earn a raise, wear a necktie. So if anything I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab, because if I did have a peg leg I'd quite possibly be more happy and more content and I wouldn't feel the need to chase after these creatures of the unknown." /Quagmire


I listened to them talk about their problems. They were all on the same page; hating their jobs, wishing that they could buy that dinner table set in the designer store instead of the one they ended up with from IKEA. Thinking that the biggest problem right now revolves around finding the time to go to the gym or saving money to buy things they don’t really need.

They all have houses. Pretty houses. Though they all talk about what hasn’t been done to them, the flaws and beauty marks. They talk about other houses they’ve been to. How it would be like to live like that, to have that kind of house. Bigger, better. Location.

I’m silent during this. I have nothing to add. In our apartment we can’t sit at the dinner table at the same time as we sit by the computer. We can’t be in the bathroom together at the same time. In fact once you’re inside you pracically have to walk backwards to get out again. We only have room for one couch by the TV and it’s rather small so we come up with creative ways for the both of us to be comfortable without hurting each other.

Listening to them talk about all those things they don’t have that I never even considered for myself should have made me really depressed. It should have me hate my life and my tiny tiny apartment with all its limitations. But I didn’t feel either one of these emotions. And I couldn’t figure out if it was because there really isn’t any point for me to crave these things or because I simply do not value happiness that way. In either case I actually felt lucky.

I’m happy. I have come to terms with my misery and all of its companions. I should have been the one complaining the most in this particular crowd yet I could not think of anything to nag about. I really don’t care about bookshelves or pool houses or the fact that I don’t have a special room for a large dinner table. It doesn’t strike me as important at all.

And I think I figured out why.

Since I’m such an unlucky bastard in everything that happens to me all I can do to keep the depression at bay is to look for the positive things in life. Stop and smell the roses if you may. Cause let’s face it people if I didn’t think like this I’d be one step away from jumping out from the balcony and that would just not be me. So instead of dvelving in my own misery, I find the good things in life and I focus on them.

(Dear God, I really am Ethan....)

In fact, I am probably more happy in my misery than I would have been had I really been happy. Cause then I would have had the time to focus on what I don’t have and be miserable about that.