Sunday, March 11, 2012

Give Up! Some Battles Aren't Worth Fighting

Sometimes you just have to be practical.  You can give it a good shot, but if you're beating your head against a wall over and over to try and win a certain battle, maybe it's time to throw in the towel. I mean some things just aren't that important in the grand scheme of life. I don't like to admit that, because I want to win every competition I'm in. But I've recently decided to stop fighting a few battles...and it feels great. And that in and of itself is a WIN.

1. Squirrels in the flowerbeds. If it were legal to shoot them with a bb gun I would. Every spring and fall for six years I've joyfully labored on my hands and knees planting beautiful flowers, only to discover them dug up every morning by the cursed grey animals that rule this part of town. I think they do it just to spite me. Well, the nasty vermin win. I'm giving up on trying to keep them out of my freshly planted flowers every season. Way too much time has been wasted with countless anti-squirrel techniques and products. I'm just switching to rose bushes.

2. Nighttime potty training my 4 year old. I changed the sheets every day for over three months in hopes that he'd get it. We tried all the training techniques. No more. This mama got tired of washing wet sheets every single day. He's back in pull-ups until his body figures it out. No more dirty sheets and no more waking up in the middle of the night to make him go to the bathroom -- that's a victory in my book!

3. Home decor that doesn't work with kids. Our kids' room has a double curtain rod in it. It makes the room look like it has some semblance of style. One rod for the flowing, white, airy curtains; and one for the dark grey curtains in front of those. I was pretty proud of putting it all together. The kids, however, use the curtains (still on the rods) for Superman capes, hiding places, or a tent for their stuffed animals. Understandable -- they are a part of the kids' room. But there I was, regularly fixing the rods and straightening the curtains. It was a nuisance. After almost a year of this, one day it dawned on me, "Why am I doing this? The kids should be able to play in their own room and I shouldn't be so worried about having the perfect decor." So I took the white flowing curtains down and just left the grey ones up. They still make good Superman capes; and I have more time to play with my supermen since I'm not busy fixing curtain rods and tangled masses of curtains.

I could go on about how I've given up trying to straighten my wavy hair, or trying to find a 4G connection in my house that's nestled at the bottom of a hill, but I'm sure you get the point.

Life is too short to spend so much time and energy fighting over unimportant things. Giving up is sometimes the better win in the end. 

1 comment:

Mary Jayne said...

I thought of your most recent blog entry when I read this article. See #8.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6qQ7vB/www.aimlessdirection.com/2008/17-tips-to-make-your-life-easier/