Top Tips for a Happy Life

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I enjoyed listening to Bill Bryson whilst I was redecorating a couple of years ago. I wouldn't just sit and listen though.

Tip 124: Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. (That irritated little voice inside your head that criticises, curses and complains about every little irritation and small inconveniance that people put your way. This is in fact a demon that that will possess you if you allow it to become your subconcious commentator of choice. You will then turn into one of those odd little old folk that inhabit houses on the edges of estates and who gesticulate wildly at passers-by for the misfortunes of... everything. Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. Go placidly amidst the noise and haste).

Tip 125: Get used to saying sorry. You'll be saying it a lot.

...like I do, but it makes for a much easier life. Forget the pride and self justification and embarrassment. Just say sorry - you've done your bit then - and move on.

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Agree with you, however I rarely ask for forgiveness.

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Originally Posted by Neely

Tip 121 - Drink a little beer everyday.

It always makes me happy.:smilewinkgrin: (I suppose this could be substituted for your choice of drink, but really, there are some great beers out there.)

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I don't like beer. At all. Would a little wine do, instead?

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Originally Posted by qimissung

I don't like beer. At all. Would a little wine do, instead?

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Yep, just had a small class of wine with my pizza for tea; always wine with pizza, feel free to have a glass everyday on me (I don't mean I'm going to buy it, I was just being polite I mean, try a decent beer though.)

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I enjoyed listening to Bill Bryson whilst I was redecorating a couple of years ago. I wouldn't just sit and listen though.

Tip 124: Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. (That irritated little voice inside your head that criticises, curses and complains about every little irritation and small inconveniance that people put your way. This is in fact a demon that that will possess you if you allow it to become your subconcious commentator of choice. You will then turn into one of those odd little old folk that inhabit houses on the edges of estates and who gesticulate wildly at passers-by for the misfortunes of... everything. Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. Go placidly amidst the noise and haste).

Tip 125: Get used to saying sorry. You'll be saying it a lot.

...like I do, but it makes for a much easier life. Forget the pride and self justification and embarrassment. Just say sorry - you've done your bit then - and move on.

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The grumbler post is genius. Great tip. I'll try to smash the little so and so. Reminds me of the advert encouraging people to learn again, getting rid of the gremlins.

I almost never listen to audio books, but I think I will start doing so, at least a little at first. My problem is that when I am really tired, and work does not help here, I just can't focus at all. I would never listen to an audio book in other circumstances, but I can imagine myself sat in the bath drinking beer really tired listening to one. Only thing is that I don't have an MP3 or similar??

Has anyone mentioned pets?

Tip #126 Get a pet.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Tip 124: Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. (That irritated little voice inside your head that criticises, curses and complains about every little irritation and small inconveniance that people put your way. This is in fact a demon that that will possess you if you allow it to become your subconcious commentator of choice. You will then turn into one of those odd little old folk that inhabit houses on the edges of estates and who gesticulate wildly at passers-by for the misfortunes of... everything. Don't listen to THE GRUMBLER. Go placidly amidst the noise and haste).

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Bugger that. I have a completely different take on it.

When I was young, I thought that the world was unchangeable - what it was was what it was and there's nothing you can do about it. So there was no alternative to simply putting up with indifferent service in shops, rude people on the tube, the internal inconsistency of outraged idiots who think that Sid Vicious shouldn't have been allowed to cover My Way, the fact that there's a huge plot-hole in Minority Report.

Now I think that it's worth processing these things and sometimes expressing them - not as an obsessive and nitpicking curmudgeon, but in a way that makes the good-humoured though serious point that I'm not prepared to silently put up with this crap.

So I'd say it should be Tip 127 - Listen to The Grumbler and to the Mickey-Taker. They're a double-act, and they work best together.

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Originally Posted by iamnobody

Has anyone mentioned pets?

Tip #126 Get a pet.

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Great tip, thank you!

I would modify it, though:

Tip #127 Pet your pet.

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

So there was no alternative to simply putting up with indifferent service in shops, rude people on the tube, the internal inconsistency of outraged idiots who think that Sid Vicious shouldn't have been allowed to cover My Way, the fact that there's a hug plot-hole in Minority Report.

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So, what clever thing would you say to the person who is serving you indifferently at the shop? I've been an indifferent shop girl, and I'm curious to see if my shopgirl self would notice or even remember thirty seconds after you'd gone. Usually everything that the dull, droning public says to me is completely uninspired, something like "pretty little girl like you should smile more" or "I read last week that this was all supposed to be on sale, was that just a lie to get people in here?"

Ha ha! Good point Juniper!

128 - Practise snappy comebacks

i.e. The answers to the above abuse could be:

a) I'd been smiling all morning - and then you walked in

and

b) Everything is on sale - to normal people

(better to be surly up front than sorry after the fact)

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Originally Posted by MarkBastable

Bugger that. I have a completely different take on it.

When I was young, I thought that the world was unchangeable - what it was was what it was and there's nothing you can do about it. So there was no alternative to simply putting up with indifferent service in shops, rude people on the tube, the internal inconsistency of outraged idiots who think that Sid Vicious shouldn't have been allowed to cover My Way, the fact that there's a hug plot-hole in Minority Report.

Now I think that it's worth processing these things and sometimes expressing them - not as an obsessive and nitpicking curmudgeon, but in a way that makes the good-humoured though serious point that I'm not prepared to silently put up with this crap.

So I'd say it should be Tip 127 - Listen to The Grumbler and to the Mickey-Taker. They're a double-act, and they work best together.

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The Grumbler is a subtle beast. It's not the world you change - if you can do that then all's well and good and good luck luck with it- but yourself.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

The Grumbler is a subtle beast. It's not the world you change - if you can do that then all's well and good and good luck luck with it- but yourself.

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Well, where would William Wilberforce, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Attila the Hun have got if they'd've taken that attitude?


Buddhists! At one? Bone bloody idle, if you ask me.


Having said that, I'm not suggesting that my attitude will change the world, necessarily. It just lets the world know that it's disappointing.

No Buddhism highlights our solitude, potential misery and the probability that it will go on and on and on - (much like the Grumbler).

There is an image problem with Buddhism though - doormats. i think the type of westerner it used to attract - disillusioned hippes - dropouts looking for an easy meditation into idleness - may have had the expectation that they just had to rise above it all on a serene cloud of their own superiority.

Having said that too - I like Grumpy Old Men and my wife reports - regularly - that I'm becoming one. It's a struggle...

We just don't have the high profile Buddhists here yet I reckon.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

No Buddhism highlights our solitude, potential misery and the probability that it will go on and on and on - (much like the Grumbler).

There is an image problem with Buddhism though - doormats. i think the type of westerner it used to attract - disillusioned hippes - dropouts looking for an easy meditation into idleness - may have had the expectation that they just had to rise above it all on a serene cloud of their own superiority.

Having said that too - I like Grumpy Old Men and my wife reports - regularly - that I'm becoming one. It's a struggle...

We just don't have the high profile Buddhists here yet I reckon.

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I have only one problem with Buddhism - getting rid of desires. How do you do that and why would you want to? If I got rid of desire, there would be nothing left of me! (Okay, I know this is for another thread, so you don't need to answer here!) But the rest of Buddhism sounds good - things such as eliminating fears. The idleness sounds good too, to stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off. That I like.

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Originally Posted by qimissung

#110-Let people be who they are.

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This is the best tip ever. My brother sent me an email today ranting about a woman he knows, "She's a princess! :flare: She grew up a princess and she still thinks she's a princess! :flare: She lives in fairy tale land!" Reading it, all I could think was "Let her be who she is!"

129 - Always try to control your temper.

130 - Drugs.

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

So, what clever thing would you say to the person who is serving you indifferently at the shop? I've been an indifferent shop girl, and I'm curious to see if my shopgirl self would notice or even remember thirty seconds after you'd gone. Usually everything that the dull, droning public says to me is completely uninspired, something like "pretty little girl like you should smile more" or "I read last week that this was all supposed to be on sale, was that just a lie to get people in here?"

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Oh, I wouldn't say anything to the person being indifferent.

Let's imagine a perfectly plausible scenario.

Me: Could I please have half a pound of mature Irish cheddar?

Indifferent deli person: I'm afraid we're out of Irish cheddar.

Me: Is that all you have to say on the matter?

Indifferent deli person: I'm sorry?

Me: Aren't you going to offer me an alternative? English? Welsh?

Indifferent deli person: Oh. Well...

Me: What do they teach you people in deli school these days? It really is too bad.

Then I'd go straight to head office and demand that she be flogged over the cheese counter, stripped of her position and thrown out onto the street without references, in the hope that this salutary change in circumstances (which she'd have brought down on her own head, let's remember) would lead her inexorably to a life of degradation, heartbreak and ultimately an unheeded demise in a dank corner of some hellish debtors' prison, surrounded by similar miscreants, such as the middle-aged woman on the Tube taking up the armrests on both sides of her seat and whoever wrote the sign in the window of the charity shop in Wimbledon in which the word 'Wimbledon' is misspelt.

In other words, I expect no more than an outcome proportionate to the original offence. I may be particular, but no one could suggest I was other than scrupulously fair.