criticsm

Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you’ll be criticized anyway.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Truer words were never spoken.

Or perhaps they were. Regardless, these are up there in the top ten of How to Live Your Life.

Eleanor goes on to say that “you’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” Hot damn! She’s right.

You can never please everyone. Let me just go ahead and say that again. You can never. Please. Everyone.

Stop trying.

I’m speaking to myself, of course, as I ~~often~~ always do on this blog but I believe these words fiercely.

I know I’m a good person so why don’t I just do what I feel in my heart to be right?

Worrying what others might think or how they may perceive what I do (or don’t do) is a terrible way to live. How people choose to see me is not in my control. (And really not my problem. Unless I make it my problem. Which we’ve just established it’s not.)

The bottom line here is that, yes, you’ll be damned if you do, damned if you don’t. So…

Do what you want. Dammit.

My Sunday thoughts in 200 words or less.

Have a lovely week, gentle readers!

I’m definitely a glass-is-half-empty kind of gal. Especially when it’s wine—then someone usually refills it.

People often say, “Why can’t you be more positive?” Here’s the thing: Bug off.

If you’d like me to change, there are much better ways to phrase it than “Why can’t you be more…”

That is just an all-around bad way to ask people to do something. I’ll go as far as to say you’re not asking them anything—you’re sugar-coating an insult.

Not sure about that one? Let me put it into a different context. When you’re a parent, you do not say to your child “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” or “Why can’t you be more athletic?”

You just don’t.

You might say “Did you see how your sister waited patiently in line? She likes to read the names of all the candy bars. Why don’t you try that?” Or “I know you don’t like basketball, soccer, or football but have you thought about karate or fencing or dance?”

So, instead of “Why can’t you be more…” try something else.

“We don’t have any more Chardonnay but, when you finish that, we have a whole bottle of Riesling.”