I  can hear my mother’s voice: “You know, you catch more flies with honey than fly paper.”  Never mind that nobody on earth uses fly paper anymore, right? But the principle is still true: Try a little kindness.

Was I challenged today!  A few mistakes discovered in something done by someone else, and I am pacing back and forth tempted to growl.  I walked into my office, sat down, and thought about fly paper.  I found my body, rigid as it had been with anger, starting to relax.  I let it go.

I even rewrote a snarky email today!  Going as it was to an opposing counsel that I find sniveling at best and outrageous at worst, still, I strove to rephrase it.  It sounded stilted, edited, and a bit phony.  Oh well. It’s only been 8 days!

As a total aside, I also found myself losing patience without someone who wanted to repeat the same story to me over and over.  I thought about the word “empathy” and realized that my voice held nothing like that; I sounded impatient.  Pressed for time, overworked, not expecting to have to even meet with this person let alone talk with them for close to 45 minutes,  I grew agitated and had to remind  myself that this person was an individual human being. I tried. I slowed down. I told the person just sit, tell me, talk.  But I know she had heard my frustration and the moment to show genuine empathy had passed.

*sigh*  So, a good day for not complaining; not so much for Nonviolent Communication!  Like quitting smoking and going on a diet the same week — challenging!!!!

So…there’s always tomorrow.