Obstacles in Life (?)

I have always been amazed at the maturity of people who are able to look past obstacles in life, looking straight into the world with a bright smile on their faces, just like nothing is wrong. I am not talking about obstacles such as terrorism, threat to world peace, hunger or the ongoing quest for a cure for cancer. No. I am just talking about the day to day mundane irritations of dealing with difficult people. I read somewhere that a geneticist said that because companies employ different types of people with different personalities, a positive work environment with high energy, high creativity and consistently happy people, may exist because the people hired into this company all have high “happy” hormones in their system, and hiring someone lacking this hormone, may not fit the environment, or may just about balance the “picture perfect” scenario.

Let me give you an idea of why I am even blogging about this. I wake up in the morning with so much zest for life; decided I will try to be positive all throughout the day. I wear something bright and cheerful, I greet everyone a good morning, I stop myself from swearing at the slow driver who will probably get me late for work and smile to myself that he must be retired and taking it easy… Good for him!! And so I try not to get pissed with not getting a parking slot close to the office saying to myself, the walk is good exercise. And once I get to my department, I greet the first person I see, who is my assistant, Good morning Donna!.. and in your effort to be pleasant, for your sake and others, you get dead silence. And not only that, all through out the day, you will hear her grumble about every new thing that you give her to do, like its not part of her job, and while she is NOT doing it, she is complaining and making smart-ass remarks sometimes unrelated to the assignment given to her. I keep my cool and just focus on making sure she does what she needs to do and provide some guidance. Maybe she needs some quiet time today, so I stay out of her way and just talk to her on a need basis. She then gets a print out and without as much as fixing the papers all upside down, some side ways and down, she passes it through her electric stapler and the staple actually does it's job, woooo hoooo! Except that the staple is in the middle of the all mixed up papers! It is so mixed up that you cannot actually read the 2nd pages onwards because it is stapled in the middle of it all. Now, how can someone look past this type of obstacle in life and still look perky and cheerful by the end of the day? Tell me? Cause I need to know if there is some potion or spiritual truth hidden in Tibet that I need to sign up for a guided pilgrimage to, so that I can achieve the yin and yang, the Let Go and Let God, the “maturity” of people (who actually exist!!! – thank goodness!!- thank GOD!!!) to look straight into the world with a bright smile on my face at the end of the day of working with someone like Donna.

On my “mature” days, I would probably just let it go and tell myself (although I don’t believe me sometimes too…) that it is not about me… her rudeness is about something else. Sometimes it works and sometimes, it doesn’t because I am not consistently in a mature mode. I have very little patience for people who are rude, and I cannot for the life of me, explain the root cause of it. So in the days that I am not as “mature”, whenever I hear her grumble, make rude remarks or comment so negatively about people, I get so pissed off and wonder, why the heck are you here in the office???

As my colleagues would tell me, the appropriate expression for me to say to her in this type of situations would be “Shit or get off the pot”. Dare me and I’d say it. If I am allowed to. :o) Not appropriate in the workplace but its nice to imagine it. So in the meantime, I bite my lip and stop myself from making a big deal out of her negativity and hope to God HE gives me the strength to keep my mouth shut so that I will not allow her to ruin my otherwise positive day.