This afternoon I was complaining to my wife -- the usual stuff about work and how much fun it isn't -- and she said something that brought me up short. She told me that she gets as frustrated with the same things at her job as I do at mine, but unlike me she doesn't take it personally. Wish I could do that, I replied, grumpily, to which she said "You just do. You let it go. You move on."
Wow. That simple phrase had enough of an impact that I taped the message "MOVE ON" to a place where I would see it, every day. And this afternoon I looked at it five or six times, and each time it calmed me down.
Amazing.
5 comments:
What a cool idea! It is amazing the power that simple phrases and touchstones can have when we're under stress.
Wives are very wise. ;)
I think you're right, Vica. They focus you. We make fun of people sometimes, saying 'okay, I'll put it in words you can understand. Fire:Bad. Warm:Good' but there are times when you do need exactly that 'get to the point'. I know that I did. And still do. Even this evening, when a couple of minor things happened to irritate me, I thought 'move on' -- and it worked. Magical, almost.
And Rach? That wouldn't be a biased comment now, would it? Not that you're wrong -- at least, in my case. She's a class act, and I'm damn lucky to have her.
There really is a lot of crap that happens that isn't personal. Even though it seems to be. That's the trick with dealing with people in bad moods. You just can't take it as your fault - just tell yourself they're having a bad day and have compassion. They might still treat you like crap but at least you've done your good deed and they don't drag you down with them. Some people have a really hard time with this.
Ah, but in this case it was ME in the bad mood.... and refusing to vacate it.
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