It’s New Year’s Day and I’ve been resisting the RESOLUTIONS blog because I so hate the idea of suggesting, along with the rest of the world, that you improve yourself. Good God, isn’t that what we spend most of our time doing? Who wants to fail yet again?
So, and I’ve thought hard about this: My only One New Year’s resolution suggestion is one that promises to make you happier–as opposed to better.
It’s simple, it’s hard, and it will change your life.
Resolve not to repeat familiar complaints to people who already know what they are. Couples, lovers, families, and friends fight endlessly about the same things–money, housework, sex, kids, whatever. To wit: My own god, for example, throws our expensive Wusthof knives in our heavenly dishwasher, knowing that they’re not supposed to go in and, more to the point, that I hate it when they go in because I don’t want to have to replace them anytime soon. Moreover, I have asked him not to, maybe a thousand times. (Yes, I know, some of you are thinking I should kiss his godly feet for loading the dishwasher at all.) Be that as it may, I ask him not to put the knives in, all the time. I take them out in the morning and say, “I asked you not to put these in the dishwasher,” and he says, “Huh? Oh. Yeah. I thought if they went on the top shelf it would be okay.” It’s a dull little routine.
This year, 2009, I will say nothing. I have resolved now that if the knives wear out, or dry out, I will buy new ones. On his bill. (It’s OUR bill, but you get the gist: I’ve resolved the issue in my head ahead of time, so there’s a genuine solution to the knife problem, if not the compliance problem.)
Your guy or your friends or your parents or your kids EXPECT you to say what you always say. So stop with the “Please put the toilet seat down,” or “Don’t leave the car keys in your pocket where I can’t find them,” or “If you’re coming to my house for dinner, would you kindly next time bring a bottle of wine?” or, in my case, carping about the knife thing. Decide what your fall-back position is (keep another set of keys where only you can find them; stock more wine. For me, it’s a nice catalogue with wildly expensive, top-of-the-line, chefs’-favorite knives.)
You’re wondering why people who love you don’t comply with your requests. Yes, well. Hmmm. Do you have a coupla hours to talk about passive aggression? And a few more to discuss OUTRIGHT aggression?, and about being set up to be a nag?
Ah, but my lovely darlings, with last year’s insanity in Iraq and in the market and with jobs and global warming, we’re way above all this lightweight silliness by now, right? (No, we’re not, but we shall pretend, in the name of taking the higher ground and in the name of our own wellbeing and happiness.) It’s incredibly disarming to go on about your business and not mention what you’re so used to mentioning and he’s so used to hearing. Step out of the setup. Stifle it for a month and he’ll be amazed. Stifle it for six months, and he’ll probably put the toilet seat down. Stifle it all year and he’ll probably do all the stuff you’ve ever asked him to do. Studies prove that if you change one half of a two-sided interaction, the whole interaction changes.
Try it. And let me know. I will, of course, keep you abreast of the knife thing.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
TLG
You’re right! It’s hard. Habits are hard to break generally, and righteous complaining is a habit with juice. Great advice, though.
It’s really hard for me to let my moderately demented (literally; I’m not being funny) husband brush his teeth his own insanely irrational way. But why?? I’ve learned to leave the room and come back and clean up when it’s over.