O is round like a chicken egg.

I had sweaty hands, so using ink pens in school was pure torture. My teacher absolutely forbade me from using ballpoint pens early on because the slippery ink would ruin my handwriting. My spelling notebooks were always smudged with ink from my sweaty hands. My handwriting started neat and round, but by the end of the page it was shaky and crooked because the sweat made my hands slippery like they were greased. I remember once practicing writing the letter O, and my teacher said, "O is round like a chicken egg," but my O must have been the egg of some newly discovered breed of chicken. Some letters were crooked to the left, some to the right, and some were crooked without any direction or pattern whatsoever. In short, after finally escaping spelling class, I felt like my life had turned a much brighter page. Looking back, I wonder: O is round like a chicken egg, but what chicken egg is round? In terms of geometric shape, it's more like an oval; even a chicken egg has one blunt end and one pointed end, not as symmetrical as an oval. But compared to a circle, it's a world apart.

The older I get, the more I realize that life is like the letter O, perfectly round like a chicken egg. That is, it's difficult to be perfectly round and flawless like calculations or mathematics. Life is a combination of small relativeities that we tend to round up into absolutes. This restaurant isn't great, but it's okay. These shoes are a little tight, but it's okay. This movie is a little boring, but it's okay. This job isn't right for me, but it's okay. I don't love this partner very much, but it's okay. Am I satisfied with the life I have? Probably not, but it's okay.

The problem is, accepting a result is far different from being satisfied with it. Dissatisfaction often leads people to extreme states, especially when feelings of dissatisfaction from small things accumulate over time, turning into a storm. In fact, dissatisfaction is a more dangerous emotional state than even clearly negative emotions like sadness, anger, or suffering. One is a strong but fleeting emotion, while the other is a persistent, insidious feeling that lingers, like a pea under seven layers of a princess's cushion. It's like how people can tolerate pain, but it's hard to endure an itch without scratching.

Long gone are the days when I readily agreed that the letter O was as round as a chicken egg. Perhaps only children are so innocent and optimistic about life's roundness. But that's no longer so important, because a chicken egg is still worth loving even if it's not perfectly round, if we learn to love its other forms. If life throws you a bone, learn to be a happy dog.