The Snowflake Chronicles

Be a Grouch

6 Sultan 163 B.E. – Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Ignore those studies that tout the benefits of a positive outlook. Being stubborn and righteously angry is what’s going to give you staying power!
Garrison Keillor
Sixty Things To Do When You Turn Sixty

No, you don’t have to live in an aluminum trash can, have a pet worm called Slimy, or keep an elephant in your basement. However, you do have to be able to say no, instead of yes, when your gut feeling tells you no is necessary to your spiritual and emotional well-being.

See that’s one of my tests, learning to say no rather than yes when my gut feeling tells me the request is unreasonable. Tells me that it will take time I don’t have, or is made by a relative I know expects me to provide free room and board into the next century without having to obey the house rules of no smoking, no alcoholic beverages and no derogatory remarks about any other created or conceived being.

I have other test, but the saying yes when no is the appropriate response is in the top nineteen. I’m not going to go beyond nineteen, because that would be just too difficult to deal with right now. Nineteen big and repeating tests is enough to deal with in 2007. Of course, it probably wont be any of the top nineteen that give me the most difficulties. The reason for this is simple and logical I expect to confront them. I’ve visualized my reaction to them. The tests that give me the most problems are those that I don’t anticipate having to face or are so far off the wall that I don’t expect them at all.

A friend of mind put it will, she said: “The things I worry about never materialize, what happens is usually so far off the wall I wouldn’t expect it.” Anyway, I think I’ll try being a grouch when it comes to looking after my spiritual and emotional well being. If I piss somebody off, relative or not, by saying no when yes is expected, so be it.

I’m going to be looking closer at the suggestions in Sixty Things To Do When You Turn Sixty and see what else I can apply this year. There are some of the suggestions that I won’t, but a number of them sound like fun. Besides, at sixty I need to start looking after my own spiritual and emotional health.