Bah, humbug to those Scrooges - do not let them defeat you

Media General News Service
Published: September 24, 2008

BACK TO THE HASSLE-FREE HOLIDAY GUIDE PAGE

We live in a culture where the Santa Claus wrapping paper goes on sale before Halloween.

And the calm that will arrive with the new year seems many shopping days, traffic jams and holiday parties away.

That’s a lot of time for even the happiest holiday soul to sustain the “most wonderful time of the year” spirit.

Richard Carlson is here to help.

An expert on happiness and stress reduction, he’s the man who wrote the best-selling “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff . . . and It’s All Small Stuff” and “Don’t Get Scrooged: How to Thrive in a World Full of Obnoxious, Incompetent, Arrogant, and Downright Mean- Spirited People” (165 pages, HarperSanFrancisco, $16.95).

Carlson offers 50 better things to do than complain about crowded stores, surly sales clerks, boorish house guests, aggressive drivers and, well, you get the idea.

Here’s Carlson’s philosophy: You can’t change any of those irritants in the last paragraph. But you can change the way you look at them.
Doing that snatches the power from the irritating people.

“A huge part of feeling scrooged is feeling powerless,” Carlson says. “How’d that happen? Why’d 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.”

We need tools to deal with the holiday Scrooges.

You know who they are. Thinking about them right now gets you steamed.

So stop that thought. Remember to breathe. Unruffle with a quick meditation, says Tip No. 19.

Don’t know how to meditate? “Meditation,” Carlson says, “is simply learning to still your mind, to be present in the moment, rather than obsessing about the past or worrying about the future.”

And don’t explain who or what got you so irritated. Griping keeps you stuck in a bad mood. “While recounting every detail of the offending person’s behavior,” he says, “it’s hard not to get riled up and feel the slight all over again.”

So let it go.

Why? “Our feelings are a reflection of where our attention lies,” he says, “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.”

That’s not good, because “time spent complaining is not time spent improving, letting go of or preventing bad situations.”

How about an example: Let’s say you always encounter a Scrooge who refills her prescriptions at the same time you do. Carlson’s
advice: Find another pharmacy.

You may ask why you should change your routine to accommodate a Scrooge.

“You wouldn’t be changing your routine for her,” he says. “You’d be changing your routine for you.”

You’ve got the power to enjoy the holidays.

And guess what? Says Carlson, “Scrooges hate this.”

Jann Malone is The Times-Dispatch’s book editor.