That's the way it is. Now what are you going to do about it?

This weekend, my sister Sharon came to visit me. It was so, so fun to have her here. And as fun as it would be to give a travel log of everything that we did, I'm actually not going to do that. But while she was here, we had some really good conversations about a plethora of different things. (Yes, I did just say plethora. I like that word.)

In one of these conversations, we were discussing how often people get upset at situations that are less than ideal. We tend to blame other people for a situation that we don't like or are uncomfortable with, and a lot of times, we aren't willing to do anything about it to change it. Then we looked at people who seem to be in control of their lives, who don't get angry about stupid little things, and what the difference was between the two. And you know, the difference is just in the attitude. Having an attitude of complaining or criticism about people or things does not do any good. The people that I know that are most in control of their lives don't get wrapped up in their little frustrations. They seem to take the attitude of, "Well, that's just the way it is. Now what am I going to do about it?" It seems so simple. And really, everyone knows that it doesn't do any good to complain and whine. Taking the proactive attitude and refusing to let yourself be acted on is so much better--but we all do it from time to time anyway.

We talked about this the other day in D&C. We were talking about when to give and receive advice, and in the course of the conversation, someone said, "You know, it's easy to serve people you like. What about when you rub against people?" Since no one is perfectly happy with anyone else all the time, we just kind of have to figure out that disagreements and frustrations and annoyances are going to arise. The key is, what do we do when we do rub against people like that? What do I do when I'm starting to be critical of other people? It's an interesting thought. And what we do in these situations is extraordinarily revealing about our character, I think.

That's just the way it is. Now what are we going to do about it?