Carlson - Dont Get Scrooged

T is the seasonand items on your to-do list are multiplying daily: trees to trim, cookies to bake, gifts to buy (and wrap, and mail, and deliver), people to see, places to be, pounds to gain. Whether youre driving or flying, going to the office party or hosting one of your own, entering the mall (again) or feeling mauled by traffic, you are not alone. Everyone it seems is doing the same things you are, exponentially upping your odds of not just getting jostled but getting scrooged.

Its as though we are all being dogged by descendants of Ebenezer Scrooge, Charles Dickenss Christmas Carol character who left everyone he encounteredat work, on the street, in his familywith something to grumble about.

Not that having a bone to pick with humanity is a purely seasonal ritual. Any day of the year can beand sometimes isjust a bad day.

As I drove to my office today to write this introduction, I stopped as usual at my favorite coffee shop for my favorite coffee drink. While waiting in line, I overheard three separate conversations, all of which featured people complaining about other people in their lives who were, in one way or another, driving them crazy. Last night, as I was flying home from a trip, everyone around me seemed to be having the same type of conversation, including the flight attendants. (Id bet the pilots were in the cockpit kvetching too.) The details are always different, but the gist of the conversations is much the samesomeone is bent out of shape by someone elses incompetence, arrogance, or obnoxious, mean-spirited behavior.

Restaurants, airports, family gatherings, parties, seminars, work-related get-togethers, grocery store lines, sporting events, elevators, bars, hotel lobbieswherever you are, the background whine is there. I visited a friend in the hospital recently, and nearly everyone in the waiting room was griping about someonethe staff, the doctor, the sick family member, the other family members who werent there, the DSL carrier, you name it. Virtually everyone, except perhaps the Dalai Lama, seems to be preoccupied with scrooges.

Although airing your grievances with others may help you feel less alone and on rare occasion gets you good advice, more often than not it keeps you stuck in a bad mood. While recounting every detail of the offending persons behavior, its hard not to get riled up and feel the slight all over again. Our feelings are a reflection of where our attention lies, and if you are focusing on getting your listener to understand just how bad this other person has behaved, your energy is clearly on the misdeeds in question. Its hard to feel calm and happy when witty retorts have finally occurred to you and visions of revenge are dancing through your head.

Whats more, time spent complaining is not time spent improving, letting go of, or preventing bad situations. It is sad to say, but griping does not accomplish a darn thing.

If venting to any and all who will listen doesnt do much good, what does? In the following pages, Ill show you some practical ways to deal with selfish, obnoxious, unethical, greedy, needy, mean people. I call them turkeys; you can call them whatever you like.

But as you read, my real hope is that youll find it easy to eliminate much of your complaining. I cant wave a wand and ensure that youll no longer have anything to complain about, but I can give you a few (make that fifty) better things to do.

Most of the strategies offered here are simple, but some might take practice to master. All of us have the bottom-line goal of keeping a smile on our face no matter what comes our way. This may sound like an impossible dream, but Ive found that it really is possible.

Ive developed these tools because life is challenging enough without giving the most irritating people in it power over our well-being. A huge part of feeling scrooged is feeling powerless. Howd that happen? Whyd they do that? But each of us has a vast reservoir of largely untapped power: we can change the way we look at, perceive, think about, and respond to virtually anyone. P.S.: scrooges hate this.

All the more reason to turn the page.