Howler Monkeys

          "I believe it's important to learn to endure life's challenges with a certain amount of grace and aplomb, but as a person who has pretty much gone through life enduring life's challenges like a howler monkey, I confess to struggling with the ideal." I love that quote.  Whoever wrote it is human, like everyone else. We all have challenges, and we have good days and bad days in how we deal with them.  The "ideal" is a notion of perfection we have in our head of what we think we should be.  Everyone has a different "ideal", put there by our environment.  My "ideal" is probably something I will never be, as it's someone that gets dressed to perfection every day, never yells at her children, is always kind and never bitter, reads scriptures and prays every day, ect.  It's what we are taught we need to strive to be.  Thinking about that bigger picture stresses me out. It's easy to give up with the task of perfection day in and day out.  
         So I decided I would have an "ideal for the day".  When I wake up, sometimes getting out of bed and doing just what needs to be done to survive is the ideal.  Sometimes it's a little more. Sometimes it's an act of service, or a little more effort in dinner made for my family.  Every day is different, so the ideal for each day should be different, with the same common goal, of course.  Little goals every day that add up to one bigger goal.  And if I don't reach the little goals? I can be a howler monkey for a day. They are probably all around me and I don't even know it, because everyone struggles sometimes.  They are our neighbors, and our colleagues, and our family members.  When we see them, they radiate grace and aplomb, but when they go home, they too, feel like howler monkeys.  So even if someone appears to meet the "ideal", give them a hug, offer kind words, ask if they're ok.  You never know if there's a monkey howling inside of them just waiting for someone to be a kind friend.