Maybe your day is going well. Maybe it’s going poorly. Maybe you’re hungry. Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you just have a mood. 

Whatever the circumstances, every now and then, someone hands you an invitation to be annoyed. An express ticket to Grumpy Town. 

You can take it. Snap it up. Really lean into the whole I’m annoyed so EVERYONE should be annoyed mentality.

And that is what we often do without thinking. We just see the invitation, and we don’t stop and consider. We just say, oh, sure why not be a grump today? I mean, you’re being invited. Wouldn’t it be rude to decline? 

But declining invitations to be annoyed is something that I’ve been thinking about lately. I thought about it while I hiked, letting the slow and quiet of the wilderness seep into my thought process. I thought about the future, and that I could simply not take those invitations and therefore avoid becoming grumpy at trivial things. 

It was a nice thought. 

See, the other day I was hungry. Hungry and trying to get stuff done so I could eat. And my husband offered me an invitation. An express ticket to Grumpy Town. 

And in the moment, I couldn’t refuse it. 

It was a silly thing to get worked up over, but I got worked up anyway. I did get to eating, and worked on a project, and then finished eating. I was hoping, by that point, to leave Grumpy Town. But sometimes, you’ve got a double ticket, and you can only leave with your partner. 

Which is a great lesson for me. It’s easy to think that I should decline these invitations in the abstract. The practice of actually declining such invitations is going to take both time and effort. But I think I’ll be better off if I try. 

I think I will feel better in my life if I graciously decline, it not all, then most of the invitations I receive throughout the day to be annoyed. Just missed the green light? Let it go. Someone cuts me off in traffic? No need to raise my blood pressure because they’re an idiot. Something turns out in a way I wasn’t expecting or wanting? Adapt. 

Easier written then done. But is it really “easy” to get annoyed? If it is so easy, then why is it so easy?  Because it’s a habit? Then why have I built a habit of being easily annoyed? What purpose does it serve for me? 

I think the next step is to try and slow down my reactions a bit. To be thoughtful and consider before reacting. Because I do not like being annoyed or grumpy, and I want to reduce the amount of my life that I spend in Grumpy Town. 

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