Unhook Your Buttons

There are some wonderful advantages to aging.  For one thing, aging keeps a person from the option.  When an elderly relative of mine would lament, "Don't get old!" I would always ask, "What's the option?"  Aging means you haven't yet experienced that option and there's still time to clean out the junk drawer, or whatever you see as necessary in order to fulfill your personal definition of success.

The other advantage of aging is the gift of time which offers the opportunity to develop perspective.  The word, impossible, can morph into the words, I'm possible.  And then there's that blessed gift of time that allows us to better understand our most interesting selves.  We get to see, if we're brave enough to look, our quirks and foibles, but also our strengths and beauty.

In the foible department, I've finally come to recognize some of my personal buttons.  You know, those things that annoy the dickens out of me.  My hot buttons.  What those actual buttons are is irrelevant.  How I react when one is pushed becomes the issue.  You know those discussions that are like a hamster on a wheels.  They go round and round and never get anywhere, and yet we engage in them because...?  Beats me.

So what, I asked myself, would happen if instead of reacting to one of my favorite protagonist's annoying remarks (am I biased, or what!) I simply smiled.  What if I responded with, "That's an interesting way to look at things."  Another smile.  I'm here to tell you that it drives that particular friend absolutely crazy!  It also slows me down enough to listen and sometimes find out that they do have an interesting way of looking at some things.  Emphasis on the words interesting and some.  I'm not yet in the running for sainthood.

So try unhooking some of your hot buttons with the people in your life.  It will give you more energy to develop the you that you long to become before this age thing runs out.  And it will drive those disagreeing people crazy!