“If you don’t master your circumstances, they will master you.” A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles, 2016
Find at least three things to be grateful for, however slight they may be: the weather, food on the table, a safe neighborhood, clean water, family, a friend, a sister, or a brother.
Are you upset about something? Cry until you are done.
Obsess about your neighbor’s transgression until you have completed it. But be sure to complete it at some point in the not-too-distant future.
The neighbor to my south went psycho on me with a nasty text message after I trimmed a branch from her tree. Yeah, I asked her permission, which she gave, even though I did not need it because it overhung my yard, shading a hedge I was trying to encourage. She didn’t like the outcome. OK, fine.
I burned on it for a while. Then, she got a citation for promptly not shoveling the snow from her sidewalk. Welcome to Ann Arbor. I shoveled her walk for her and have used my snow blower to clear her walk ever since. It takes me five entire minutes! She’s pretty frail and infirm. Last week, she baked me a strawberry bunt cake. She informed me that it contained a pound of strawberries. Good, too!
Thank you very much, Mr. Kindness. Cost to me: too small to measure, even.
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