Saturday, February 7, 2009

Passive-Aggressive Notes

A day or two before Christmas I was killin' some time at Barnes & Noble when I came across a simple yet profound book entitled, "Passive-Aggressive Notes." Rarely am I so quickly engaged in a book, but this was different. The book title is straightforward. This is simply a book of compiled notes that reflect passive aggressive behavior.

I've alway been intrigued by passive/aggressives and see myself able to operate in that behavior easily in order to avoid conflict. So in an effort to understand my tendancy better, I scrambled through the book, giggling to myself as though I could have been the author of many a note found there. I quickly reflected back to the notes I found from my mother growing up, "Please flush toilet when done using. Thank you. The Management." I tried one of these notes in my own life as a mother and wife. Let me just say, PA behavior just does not fly with Cholerics such as my husband. Praise God!

It's a slow process, but I'm slowly kicking this behavior and confronting things as they come...most of the time. And I'm seeing the rewards of following the instructions of Jesus and "Going to our brother." It works so much better than bottling it up, tossing it around with everyone but that person, and then either exploding in a rude note or face-to-face non-Christlike manner speech. Been there.



So the notes in this blog are notes I'm tempted to post for my mother-in-law who moved in with us right before Christmas. I just don't have the heart to tell her face to face. What if she just says, "forget it...do your own dang laundry and cleaning." I'm so ungrateful, huh?

ADDED 2/11/08:
I have another one I would like to post next to my bathroom trash can:
"This garbage is taken out weekly...banana peels get to stinkin'. Please place banana peels in kitchen garbage."




2 comments:

  1. I LOVE your "About Me!" I laughed out loud and thought I was reading about myself...."engrossed, passion, fury." Your blog is a lot of fun to read.

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