You mood is sometimes your choice.

I was just tweeting with some of my quilting friends. We were talking about fake phone calls from people pretending to be the police, firemen or even cancer groups asking for money. Here's what happened to me last week all within a few hours...

I got 3 different phone calls from the same number (but from different people) asking me for a donation for 3 different organizations. On most days by the 3rd phone call I would have been so annoyed and would have been very nasty to the caller. This would only result in my mood changing and not in a good way. After all, do any of us really feel better after we have been nasty to someone? I don't. My heart rate goes up and my heart feels angry (I don't know how to describe it). I get stressed...tense in my shoulders and sometimes I get a headache. And if I am with someone I get even more annoyed when they tell me to 'calm down" (calm is one of my four letter words). Plus I know that I am not ruining the callers day. They are used to the verbal abuse and might even laugh at how many people they can upset. So this time I decided to laugh at them...right to their face and guess what? They had no comeback for that. After a few awkward seconds he just said he was sorry and hung up. So I ask you whose mood was worse after that? It wasn't mine, I got a laugh out of it, and I have to hope that he felt a tiny bit bad for what he was doing or at least stupid.

The reason I am sharing this story is to show you that I had a choice of how I would react to a situation and that by choosing to not allow myself to get upset my mood was not changed in a negative way.

Next time you are starting to feel annoyed at someone try this. You don't have to be as extreme as me and actually laugh at them, but if you pick and choose your arguments then your mood will be less affected. This is especially true with our spouse and children. I remember picking at things they did and at one point I realized that all this negative attention wasn't working. If they can't get positive attention they will do what they need to  to get negative attention, all they want is attention so they get it anyway they can. By picking and choosing my 'fights' I was in a better mood and so were my kids. It took me a long time to figure it out, but I promise it works. Even with my grown children and husband I go by this. Instead of complaining about how he folds the towels, I am just grateful for what he does. This definitely makes me happier, which is better than begin annoyed.

I hope this helps next time you find yourself getting annoyed at little things.

Sha :)