What’s Right with You?

base of a statue in Thailand

*

It was the night before my seventh birthday, and I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed. After I brushed my teeth, I picked up a tube of Chapstick and put some on my lips. Since I have always been inexplicably compelled to read labels, I read the label on the tube. It said, “Lip and Face Balm.” So naturally I decided to apply it all over my entire face. Because that’s what the label said it was for. Then I went downstairs and sat on the couch to wait for my mother who had said she wanted to see me before bed.

A few minutes later Mom joined me on the couch and said in a wistful voice, “Wow, it’s your last night of being six!” Then she leaned in a little closer and noticed the sheen. In a horrified tone she asked, “What is on your face?!” “Chapstick,” I replied matter-of-factly. After all, I was following the directions.

“What’s wrong with you?!” she demanded, to which I answered, “It said ‘Lip and Face Balm’ on the label, so I put it on my face.”

*

A good many years later, I understood completely why my mother yelled “What’s wrong with you?!” I had two sons – and a good many opportunities to yell the very same thing, usually involving something broken. I tried not to as much as I could, but I’m sure it slipped out on more than one occasion. And I regretted it. I didn’t want them taking it to heart – that something was wrong with them, believing that. Because even without someone asking what’s wrong with us, we often have a tendency to focus on the things that we perceive to be wrong with us.

And of course, sometimes there really is something wrong with us – an infection, a disorder requiring medication, a habit that is harmful. And we need to be aware of that and do something about it. But the fact is that we often find ourselves focusing on things that we think are wrong with us, poor choices we might have made or traits we perceive as character flaws, when we are actually just learning, and living. Just trying to figure out what the hell Chapstick meant by “Lip and Face Balm” (after I told her about the label, my mother said the “Face” part was meant for skiers).

So, after this past year of trying to fix what’s wrong with me, I decided to focus on what’s right with me. The good character traits, the great immune system, the return of creativity (I love how it’s always there, just waiting for me to tap back into it), and a bunch of other things I don’t want to toot my own horn about. We all have so much that’s worthwhile about ourselves, and so often we don’t see it or think about it. After all, nobody asks, “What’s right with you?”

So I will. It’s a new spin on positive thinking. Take a moment to think about it, focus on it, believe it: What’s right with you?