Pet Peeves and Opportunities for Growth

I don’t want to suggest that I focus on the negative side of life. I truly appreciate all the simple beauty around me and the amazing people, plants, and animals on this planet. Life is always changing and presenting a huge range of opportunities to grow. That in itself is amazing.

But…there are a lot of things that drive me nuts. These crazy-making things cause stress. When I’m feeling peaceful inside these things are less disruptive. But only for a while. These things and many other small annoying things make me say, what the heck?!

Things that drive me nuts:

-Shoe commercials. I love shoes, but shoe commercials go overboard, depicting women who can’t have enough shoes. They go all googly eyed over shoes, smiling and dancing and prancing. Over shoes. People, we’re trying to be less shallow and materialistic. Stop trying to get us to fill our lives with shoes.

-Car commercials. I like my car. It was purchased new and it is sky blue. It has a very good rating for gas efficiency and low emissions. Those things matter to me. But car commercials that suggest the way to happiness, more sex, more luxurious living, more respect, more freedom…I could go on…drive me nuts.

-Music on hold. I call a company, I get the little speech about how important my call is to the company, BUT everyone is too busy to answer my call. Hence, I’m put on hold and all bets are off. I may be subjected to country music, elevator music, old pop tunes, or worse, advertisements. I appreciate the company’s effort to assure me my call has not been disconnected, but the on-hold music needs to be reevaluated. Since waiting on hold is in itself stressful, why not treat the person on hold to classical, soothing tunes, nature sounds, instrumental music, harp music? At least those kinds of on-hold sounds wouldn’t threaten us with an unrelenting ear worm from a catchy song.

-Drivers. I’m old enough to remember when drivers were courteous, at least sort of. Drivers didn’t race onto main roads from side streets, they stopped. Drivers left ample room between cars while driving. I imagine the laxness in following driving laws and just being discourteous to a dangerous degree has something to do with technology. We’ve all gotten so used to nanosecond responses from our various devices, such as our smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc., that even though there are no cars behind me as I drive down the main road, the person at the side road pulls in front of me, never considering that there isn’t room to accelerate and more importantly, there is NO CAR behind me. What wait? Five seconds? Inconceivable.

-Misnamed body parts. I think we can thank the Kardashians for the current misunderstanding about female body parts. Anyone who took health class, which we all were required to do when I was in school, knows a woman’s vagina is not visible just by looking up her skirt when she’s not wearing underwear. The vagina is inside a woman’s body. It drives me nuts when women don’t know their own body.

-Shoppers in a grocery store who are unknowingly discourteous to other shoppers because they feel they are the center of the universe and no one else exists. You know them; they stand in the middle of the isle, staring at the shelves, obstructing the lanes, completely unaware of others around them.

Okay, that’s enough about my pet peeves. While these things and others get under my skin, I realized a few months ago that having so many opinions about things – I don’t like country music, I don’t like people to act like bigots, I don’t like the use of incorrect grammar, etc. – was wearing. I made a list of all the things I could think of that I had strong feelings about. No holding back, just making a list. Then I let all that go. It felt like I could breathe easier. I didn’t have to make sure everyone and everything did what I thought was right. I still sputter when another car tailgates me or point out a spelling mistake on a sign. But some days I can just laugh at a sign using an apostrophe for a word that is simply a plural, or mute the shoe commercial.

Life is full of opportunities to grow.