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Relationships

Don’t be offended

Find yourself getting easily offended by the words and actions of others?

Are you quickly irked, miffed or put out?

Do you tut-tut and write angry letters of complaint to newspapers and television stations?

Yes? Get a grip.

Here’s what happens if you find other folk’s behaviour distasteful:

  • You get upset, your blood pressure gets raised, you lose a lot of time worrying, and you shave a couple of minutes off your own life.
  • Nobody else gives a shit.

Now, IT DOESN’T MATTER what others think, granted, and on top of that, you’re not qualified to determine the thoughts of others, but when you get upset by what other people do, that’s what happens:

YOU get upset. And that’s it.

There are a lot of things in life worth fighting for and getting pissed off about. You can legitimately be offended in the following instances:

  • Bob looks you square in the eye and says, “you’re a useless waste of space”.
  • Gerald tells you he thinks your kids look like they’ve been dragged through the ugly bush, backwards.
  • Ernie borrows 100 dollars and tells you he has no intention of returning it.
  • You see your name in a newspaper under the headline “This person is a nonce”. (Of course, you only have the right to be upset if you’re not, in fact, a nonce.)

You may not be offended or put out in the following circumstances:

  • Encountering a homosexual, when your religion disapproves. It’s none of your business.
  • Overhearing blasphemy, when your religion disapproves. Get over it.
  • Seeing a crowd of youngsters smoking in a non-smoking area. (The consequences of getting involved can be harrowing, but it probably serves you right for sticking your nose in.)
  • Hearing bad language on the television. Switch it off, don’t write an angry diatribe that nobody cares about.
  • When somebody doesn’t adhere to the dress code at the country club.
  • When a visitor doesn’t like your curtains. They’re probably only telling it like it is.

If you’re still inclined to take issue with something, because your life is incomplete without drama, then so be it. I’m not here to tell you what to do, you useless waste of space.

You might like to decrease your own stress levels by taking a decision to not be so sensitive in the future. Ask yourself this:

“Was the intention of that person’s actions to cause me offence, or is he just somebody who doesn’t do things the way I do things?”

The answer is normally “no, that person’s intention wasn’t to cause me offence, therefore I won’t get upset.”

On the few occasions that the answer is “actually, yes, I think he did want me take offence”, then don’t take the bait. Smile and nod and say something mildly patronising but largely innocuous.

Don’t give any of those bastards the satisfaction of seeing you upset.

27 comments

Say what you mean

Afraid to be direct? Constantly flit around the issue, or sidestep the question? Find yourself saying “no, that sounds great” when you really mean “urgh … I’d rather rearrange my facial features with a spanner”? Find that your day is taken up pleasing others and neglecting yourself?

This advice is for you:

SAY WHAT YOU MEAN!

There are only so many hours in the day. (Nominally, 24, but once we’ve arsed around getting things done and clearing up and going to work and changing nappies, the hours that count are fewer than we’d like.)

Make that time count by starting out any course of action with honesty.

If the question is:

Would you like to take a ride in my SUV and spend the afternoon picking wild mushrooms for an organic supper?

The the answer is:

“Yes” OR “No”

depending strictly upon what YOUR answer ACTUALLY is.

“Would you like” should be taken at face value.You either would like or you wouldn’t like. If you can think of nothing greater, then say, “Yes”. If you really don’t want to go fungus-foraging, then say NO.

You can qualify your answer. (N.B. You can do pretty much anything you like). If you’re going to do that, be direct as well.

“The thought of spending the afternoon with you is an attractive one. However, I can think of a dozen things more interesting and exciting than mulching around in the damp for toadstools. Let’s go ice-skating instead, then I’ll buy us pizza and we can throw stones at empty beer bottles.

BRILLIANT! You’ve not only carved out an infinitely more interesting Saturday afternoon for yourself, but you’ve also stamped some of your own character on to the proceedings.

And similarly, if you don’t really fancy going on a mushroom hunt, but you know that doing just that would make your counter-party immeasurably happy, and that is more important to you than ice-skating or pizza or avoiding an afternoon foraging, then, on balance, your answer is: “YES, I would like to do that“, albeit for reasons that weren’t immediately obvious to you.

6 comments

Nobody’s thinking what you think they’re thinking

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK ISN’T IMPORTANT, most of the time.

And more than that, what you think other people are thinking is often very wrong:

Situation nr. 1: You’re walking down a BUSY street, full of cool kids hanging out and listening to their ghettoblasters and sipping frappucinos. You’re carrying your groceries, nonchalantly whistling and then BANG! You slip on an artfully placed dog turd. You fall flat on your derrière, shopping goes everywhere and you split your lip.

You think:

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod I look like such a DICK. Ohmygod I’m COVERED IN DOG SHIT and everyone can see that I buy cheap groceries. Ohmygod ohmygod I will NEVER survive the embarrassment and humiliation and will forever be associated with the shitty slip in the middle of the street. OHMYGOD MY LIFE IS OVER.”

Everybody else thinks:

Poor thing. I hope she’s OK.

***

Situation nr. 2: You’ve finally plucked up the courage to invite the sexy librarian out to dinner. After months of flirting over Keats, Byron and Bryson, you swallowed your male pride, taken action and invited her out and OHMYGOD she said YES! You’ve spent two hours in the bathroom, scrubbing your crotch twice and re-applying hair-gel three times. You’ve ironed your shirt and are looking pretty darn HOT when you catch a final glimpse of yourself in the mirror. OHMYGOD you’ve got a HUGE ZIT just below your nose. But too late to do anything about it. Bugger. You sit down to dinner, and the evening goes downhill from there.

You’re thinking:

“*Sigh* I reckon my chances are totally blown here. She’s thinking I’m a total LOSER, bringing a frickin’ SPOT to dinner. But it won’t be here for ever, so I’m not going to mention it and will casually cover it with my hand whilst making scintillating conversation, and hopefully salvage the situation.”

She’s thinking:

“He seems like a really hot, intelligent guy.  The kind of guy who I’d like to take home and suffocate with my thighs, but I wish he’d stop rubbing that tiny little spot below his nose. It’s getting redder and redder.”

***

Situation nr. 3: You’re at the coolest bar in town. You’ve drunk half a bottle of champagne and have spent the last two hours snorting coke off a toilet seat with an advertising executive you’ve just met.

You think:

OHMYGOD I am on BRILLIANT FORM. I’m looking good, feeling good, and my conversation is just SCINTILLATING. I’m a confident and forthright young person in the prime of my life and the best raconteur you ever met. I’m going to do a tour of the room to introduce myself to everybody.

Everybody else thinks:

What a dick.

***

So there, the definitive guide to how you’re mostly wrong.

When it comes to other people’s thoughts, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. You are uniquely UNQUALIFIED to offer advice to yourself.

So don’t.

9 comments

Get Help

Who do you think you are? Superman?

GET SOME HELP!

You don’t really believe that the best way of doing whatever it is you’ve got to do is alone, but you like to think of yourself as an “independent woman” or “a man who can”.

Your distorted sense of pride is stopping you doing one of two things:

  1. Asking for help; and/or
  2. Accepting help when it’s offered

Take the following situation, one we can all relate to:

Your prize-winning collection of Koi carp need to be vaccinated against seasonal flu. You’ve got two hundred of the buggers, and they’re slippery customers. Getting hold of them is one thing, let alone keeping them still long enough to vaccinate them.

You devise a method of doing it, and estimate that it will take you five minutes to net, jab, tag and release each fish.

(5 Minutes) x (200 fish) = Fucking Ages

On top of that you’ve had a dinner planned with your sexy estate-agent in five hours time.

Here’s how you do it:

…

Get five people to help you.

BANG! Seventeen hours of work distilled into four. Your sanity saved and the prospect of shacking up with aforementioned sexy estate-agent tripled, thus guaranteeing a life-time of spiritual harmony and breakfast in bed.

Simple, huh?

And the beauty of this trick is this:

it doesn’t apply only to innoculating expensive fish.

Shopping, housework, envelope-licking, data-entry, house-building, holiday-planning and all manner of getting things done can be made shorter and more enjoyable by accepting help.

  • If you don’t have any friends, pay somebody to help you.
  • If you don’t have any money, get some friends.

So swallow your pride, take a deep breath, and swallow it up, sucker:

You Can’t Always Do It On Your Own.

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