Don’t let other people ruin your day

I was nearly pissed off this morning when one of the maids woke up late. It took three times for the other maid to wake her up before she arose. I was about to give  her a tongue lashing but before I could open my mouth, I remembered the words of Richard Carlson in his book, Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff. He said, “Choose your battles wisely. Life is filled with opportunities to choose between making a big deal out of something or simply letting it go, realizing it doesn’t really matter. Certainly there will be times when you will want or need to argue, confront, or even fight for something you believe in. Many people, however, argue, confront, and fight over practically anything, turning their lives into a series of battles over relatively small stuff. There is so much frustration in living this type of life that you lose track of what is truly relevant.”

I told myself that I don’t want to ruin my day because of her. If I would lose my cool, I would give her the power to make me angry. “Why should I gave her that power?”  I said to myself. In fact, an unknown writer said, “If you lose your composure and get your emotions out of the handle, you become powerless and the other person becomes powerful.”

Besides, I didn’t want her to rob me of  my happiness and joy.  I never regretted that I didn’t reprimand her because on that day,  I had a fruitful and enjoyable day with a relative close to my heart.

Carlson is on the notion that we have to choose our battles wisely. Let us not allow anyone to ruin our day, especially on small stuff. He said, “The truth is, life is rarely exactly the way we want it to be, and other people often don’t act as we would like them to. Moment to moment, there are aspects of life that we like and others that we don’t. There are always going to be people who disagree with you, people who do things differently, and things that don’t work out. If you fight against this principle of life, you’ll spend most of your life fighting battles.

Carlson offers this food-for-thought, “A more peaceful way to live is to decide consciously which battles are worth fighting and which are better left alone. If your primary goal isn’t to have everything work out perfectly but instead to live a relatively stress-free life, you’ll find that most battles or irritations in life pull away from your most tranquil feelings. Like, is it really important that you prove to your spouse that you are right and he/she is wrong, or that you confront someone simply because it appears as though he or she had made a minor mistake? Does your preference of which restaurant or movie to go to matter enough to argue over it?  Does a small scratch on your car really warrant a suit in small claims court?  These and thousands of other small things are what many people spend their lives fighting about.”

In this world, whatever irritations come our away, it’s all up to us whether we allow these to ruin our day. As Carlson advises, “If you don’t want to “sweat the small stuff,” it’s critical that you choose your battles wisely. If you do,  there will come a day when you’ll rarely feel the need to do battle at all. For your own sake, don’t let other people or situation ruin your day.”

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