Don’t go there

I find myself slipping.

I know I shouldn’t look down on that other person, but it’s all too easy to do it.

I see a man sitting in his car in a parking lot with his engine running for several minutes at a time. I think of wasted fuel, money and burned petroleum added to the air I’m trying to breathe. I want to go over and ask him to shut the engine off, roll down his window and enjoy the bird songs in a nearby tree.

We take our kids to the local pizza buffet. I see a lady piling her plate high for the fourth time. I don’t want to say something to her, but my death rays are almost visible.

Those are probably not your hot buttons. But I’d guess you’ve been in that place I ended up at because of other issues.

Let’s not go there. We end up letting those thoughts grow, like weeds. It gets harder to avoid that loop the next time. And sometimes it does come out, often with disastrous results. If we let those loops run, we share them with our friends. They end up wanting to avoid us.

So let’s not just play nice … let’s LIVE nice.

This is a guest post from Paul Merrill.

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Paul Merrill lives in suburban Colorado with his wife and three kids. They have a minivan and sometimes dream about owning a Prius. Eight years of their family life was in Kenya and England. Paul has a taste for exotic toothpastes. His home blog, Shiny Bits of Life, is really wonderful.