Blog 1506 – 11.02.2019

Difficult People

We have all known and loved difficult people. Chances are quite great that at one time or another we have been that difficult person. But I am talking about people, young or old, who are a proverbial pain in the “tookus” most if not all of the time. Dame Rip Van Winkle was just that a sort. Granted Rip was not the industrious sort but none of her nagging and ragging helped that one whit and only served to make her and all those around her more miserable.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14bKJb8ykRdClO-VffnHHV77Dq2jAy3rG/view?usp=drivesdk

Rip Van Winkle

The grandma saying goes, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” If Tony Soprano’s mother had a granny like that she did not listen to her advice. I can still hear her whining at Tony, “Just stab me in the heart.” It is people like that, even though we love them, that make the song, “ I Will Be Glad When You’re Gone, You Rascal You” have a certain appeal. In the story, upon discovering he had been asleep for twenty years and at meeting his grown daughter, just a small girl when he went for his walk, Rip immediately asks her, “What about your mother?” And when he hears that his wife had already passed in a fit of anger, he is relieved.

We can do little if anything to make unhappy people happy. I discovered some years ago after trying my life long to be a people pleaser what Rick Nelson sang so well in one of his last big hits, Garden Party, that “You can’t please everyone so you got to please yourself.”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZenRxHqwY1KHVoQTcJQx_fEvdeioTA7S/view?usp=drivesdk

Garden Party

We can make but one person truly happy, ourself, but we can share that happy self with other happy selves and what a joy that is.

Please do not waste your time trying to make difficult and unhappy people happy, just love them, that is always the best we can do. Start with loving yourself and maybe, just maybe, they will follow your example. I believe the truest secret to overcoming every difficulty in life and any unhappiness that might come our way is to love ourselves. Others, that’s “easy peezy” even difficult people after we first learn to love ourselves. Now don’t be difficult.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White