So for a second I wondered if my aunt had gotten malware on her phone or something. I sent back a message asking if she needed both our email addresses or just mine, along with a comment about our weather and asking how hers was. My intent was to make sure that she had meant to send me that message before I did anything else. When she answered she said never mind, she had found the information.
Continue reading I don’t mean to be a jerk, part 1
So I understand why some people are tired of it all by Boxing Day.
It feels like people are more impatient to end it than they used to be, and a friend had an interesting theory about that… Continue reading The eleventh day
I’ve already posted about some goals I’m setting myself, so I’ve already probably outraged or disappointed a few. I could do a really verbose and intricate summation of my 2013, but I really don’t think even I would enjoy that. But all this talk about not doing things just because other people are does have me thinking…
Replace an undesired activity with a desired activity. A good dog trainer knows that just yelling at the dog for chewing on your shoe is bad, and instead giving your dog an acceptable chew toy while removing the shoe is better. Rather than beat yourself up for obsessing over that metaphorical shoe, give yourself a metaphorical chew toy to occupy yourself.
Because it’s the time of year when lots of people compile retrospectives of the previous year and/or set goals for the next, it’s difficult not to at least think about it.
I’ve been thinking about several things that could fall into the category of resolutions.
Some years ago I wished everyone:
May you be wise when you need to be, foolish when it doesn’t matter, loved always, and ever ready to love.
And I can’t think of a better wish.
Happy New Year!
Goodness knows I’ve vented about crazy family members many, many times.
I think we’ve all been there, at least once. For some the ordeal happens at every visit home and every holiday. Others only experience it occasionally. Venting about it afterward can be a valuable means of relieving stress. Better to share some stories with sympathetic friends than to strangle your racist uncle, homophobic brother-in-law, or Bible-thumping sibling, at Grandma’s dinner table, right? Continue reading No one hurts us like family can
It’s not just that suicide rates don’t go up, nor merely that psychiatric admissions don’t go up. The studies show that suicide rates actually go down at each major holiday, and that psychiatric admissions reach their lowest point in the weeks immediately before Christmas.
We almost always have it on the third Saturday of December, since the third Saturday of every other month is the night we get together for our monthly Writers’ Night. For many years different members of the project took turns hosting the party. Then we went a number of years where the same household hosted it almost every year. Since the size of the party varies widely, it winds up being a major undertaking.
So this year we decided to try something different… Continue reading Holiday Party
In the opening episode of season four of Justified, Deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens tells a criminal he has locked in his trunk, “If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” I had never heard that saying before, but I had become familiar with the principle.
I have seen it again and again. Many times, through the various fandoms and other activities I’m involved with, I meet people who are always saying that most people are awful. Most of their co-workers are incompetent or are constantly undermining them. And this experience is repeated every time they change jobs. Every relationship they get into falls apart. Most of their former friends betrayed them or let them down in some way, and they have almost no long term friends. They like to go on about all the reasons that they would be a good catch, and they don’t understand why no one will date them. They grumble about the fact that no one likes nice guys.
And just about every time when I get a chance to get to know these people who have all these horror stories, they act like jerks.
The problem is that they have confused “being civil in expectation of being rewarded” with being genuinely good. They have confused “what can this person do for me” with being genuinely interested.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everyone who has bad experiences with friend, dates, or co-workers is a jerk. Everyone has bad things happen to them. We all have had to work with or be around people who are less than wonderful—sometimes even quite awful people.
However, if nearly every person you have ever worked with at every workplace is incapable of completing tasks correctly, or is uncooperative, conspires against you, is unappreciative of your skills, takes credit for your work, or always unfairly assigns blame to you, you need to take a good hard look in the mirror.
If virtually every person who have ever been romantically involved with cheated on you, or was “crazy,” or never appreciated you, or always demanded sacrifice from you without any reciprocation, or caused all the problems in the relationship, you need to learn to take an objective self assessment.
If time after time nearly everyone you befriend turns into a demanding jerk, or never has time for you, or is only available when they want something from you, is always critical, is never supportive, or otherwise betrayed you again and again, you need to re-evaluate your choices.
Experiencing such a string of similar bad situations isn’t proof positive that you’re a world-class jerk. It’s possible that you are a really bad judge of character. It’s possible that you have such low self-esteem that your opinion becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s possible that you are sabotaging yourself in some other way.
But when everyone is letting you down in every situation, there is no chance that you aren’t contributing to the situation in some way.
Many jerks are sincerely unaware of just how badly they treat others. Being a jerk isn’t just about calling people bad names, or stealing from them, or physically assaulting them. There are so many ways you can disrespect people.
For instance, a friend might hear that you’re looking for a new job, and puts in a good word for you at their workplace when you apply. Then you blow off the interview because something else came up, or you forgot what day it was, or whatever. You think that it didn’t cost your friend anything, but they’ve now lost some credibility with their employer. Now any time they recommend anything, or simply report about an issue at work, there will be a tendency on the part of their supervisor to doubt them, because they were wrong about you. You do something like that to someone, and they are going to be very reluctant do extend any favors to you again.
It was most strongly driven home for me when, after dating a bunch of guys that kept not working out in very similar ways, I finally had to admit that the only thing they all had in common was that I had picked them. I couldn’t control how a guy was going to feel about me, but I did have control over who I asked out or who I said yes to.
Everyone vents. Everyone shares frustrations and disappointments. I am as guilty of that as anyone. But when all you have is frustration and disappointment, when there is never any redeeming friendship, acquaintance, or association, you need to stop complaining, stop blaming, and figure out what thing about yourself needs to change.
So I totally understand why some of my long distance friends don’t understand just how much I despise snow. I hate snow. I have said many times that if I never have to walk in snow ever again—even if I live to be a million years old—I would be just fine.
Font Folly 