Summer fades behind us and we return to the daily grind. The air turns gray. In each of us settles a familiar gloom—the kind that comes when you trade endless sunshine and sea air for traffic jams, alarm clocks, and bills that keep climbing higher. The routines resume: the office, the errands, the endless waiting in line.
There is disappointment too. On vacation we had forgotten how much energy it takes to tolerate certain people, to simply bear their presence. And we are disappointed in ourselves. Each year that passes, we are startled anew by our own limits, our failures. The regrets surface: the things we failed to do, the things we did badly. We thought by now we would have accepted ourselves. Instead, we find we have not.
At the start of every return, most of us feel it—some more acutely than others: a heaviness, a loss of trust, the sense that we cannot manage. And while we scramble for anything to lift us up, the world spreads before us a dreary, deflating sight. Stern faces. Nervous ones. Faded, angry ones. Rude passersby. Abrupt shopkeepers. Complaining colleagues. Even in church, where we go seeking comfort, we meet composed, serious people—people who seem incapable of showing the fraternity our hearts long to find. I am not speaking here of the tragic events that fill our days and leave us stunned, events that call for a quiet, grieving witness.
So what do we do? How do we lift our heads and move forward with trust and peace?
What you need is a good dose of USCOBUFPT, to be taken every morning upon waking. What is it? I invented it myself, sitting here overlooking green fields and blue sky. I invented it for myself and for all of you, if you trust me. USCOBUFPT stands for "Unfailingly Sunny, Contagious Optimism and Buoyant Humor for Everybody."
How do you take it? Like any medicine—with the will to heal.
When? Upon waking. Though sometimes you need a second or third dose in the course of the day.
Any side effects? None whatsoever. It can be given safely at any age.
What does it do?
- In general, it brings sun and the color of the sea back into our gray days.
- It stops you from catching what others carry—the chronic disease of pessimism and despair.
- By osmosis it seeps into those around you: your husband, your children, your friends, your colleagues, strangers.
- Little by little it teaches you to see with gratitude all the gifts and wonders we are surrounded by and nourished with.
- In some patients, a marked tendency toward laughter and smiling has been observed (not the forced kind, but genuine and radiant), along with an impulse to sing.
- Within days it pulls you out of self-absorption and the brooding on your troubles, and opens you to genuine, generous encounters with others.
- After a month you feel a vital force stirring from within: the strength to hope, to hold your head high in the face of failure, to taste life fully despite all that works against you.
Not much? I forgot to mention: it is free. But for it to truly work, you have to get it from God.
by Mariangela Bertolini, 2004