Know when you've got it good.

An older person I know said to me not long ago that she was happiest when she was about thirty and living in a certain part of the country, with a certain guy (who she didn't marry but now wishes she had). "I was so happy then," she says, "but I didn't know it."



I think it's important to know when you're happy and to stop to figure out why you are. I know it's not easy, especially when you're young and in the midst of things, to be able to take stock of your own situation, but I think the smartest of us do just that and reap the benefits.



Think of long-married couples that you know. Surely you know at least one or two. What has kept them together all these years? Maybe they knew when they had it good and stuck with it.

Or maybe they moved on and found another place, later in life, when they knew they had it good and stuck with that. Sooner or later, any couple who stays together thinks: we've got it good, and we need to make this work. Couples who come apart may look back, individually, and think: we had it good. But it's too late for them. They didn't know when they had it good.



It's very hard to know when we have it good, when everything is working in our favor, when we are truly happy. But it's essential to our long-term happiness. So why do so many of us blow that once-in-a-lifetime chance and regret it forever?



Who knows? Part of it may be that we're too busy living our lives to notice how we feel beyond a general sense of satisfaction or disappointment, of peacefulness or stress. Or it may be that we don't trust the sense of well-being that seems to be our current lot; either we don't think we deserve it, or we're pretty sure it won't last. Or maybe we don't know how we should feel or what we want (or who we want), so we don't recognize our happiness when we get it.

Whatever the reason, from time to time we should evaluate our situation and our state of mind and, if all appears to be what we'd hoped it would be, then try to figure out WHY it's working so well. Society and psychologists tend to look harder and deeper at what is NOT going well in our lives and our heads (and our hearts), but figuring out why things are going right is at least an equally valuable subject of study. If we don't understand why we're feeling good -- why we've got it made -- how can we keep it going?



Here are some signposts for identifying when you've got it made:



1) You are crazy in love with the person you're with (or at least comfortable).

2) You're making a good living, able to support yourself and maybe someone else.

3) You're doing sort of what you hoped to do for a living.

4) You and the person you're with agree about having kids or not.

5) You're okay with your parents and other in-laws -- no major battles of resentments.

6) You don't worry about what your friends think about your choices of job or mate.

7) You feel good about yourself: you're in decent shape, your addictions are under control, etc.

8) You are curious about the bigger world -- science/politics/arts/etc.

9) If you do have kids, you want to show them the world and share their discoveries.

10) You wake up every morning thinking that it will very likely be yet another good day.



If you can answer YES to all those questions -- and others you think up yourself -- then you've got it good. Be thankful. Rejoice.

And, above all, don't forget it!

Americans don't vote because they don't think they need to.

I know that much has been made of the fact that Americans don't vote as much as citizens of other nations do. Even developing countries. There are theories about this, of course. The most popular is that Americans aren't as smart as we think we are and don't think much about who is running for any particular office, and aren't all that educated about the process anyway. Aren't educated in general.

That's probably all true, but it's not as bad as it sounds, and it's not the whole story.


The reason most Americans don't vote is not just because they/we don't know anything about the candidates/issues -- and we probably don't -- but because we think that it doesn't matter who gets elected. In any case, we think, the basic American life as we know it will continue, and for most of us, that's okay. The worst choice for President won't change things all that much, at least for the average citizen -- the one who may or may not vote. We may be mistaken about this, but I think it's how most of us look at elections.


Think about what it means to be an American: we have a guaranteed freedom of speech, and a freedom of religion, and a freedom of assembly (whatever that means) and all kinds of freedoms
of this or that.

In short, we take our freedoms for granted, and we know that no one who is elected to whatever office, even President, is going to take them away. Whoever is elected, from either party, our lives will continue the way they have for as long as we've been alive. No one will ever come into our house in the middle of the night and drag us away, throw us into prison, deprive us of all our rights. We're pretty much safe to go about our daily lives. And that's why we don't vote.

Of course there are nuances with every President or party elected to office -- higher taxes or more or less money spent on poor people, etc. -- but we in America know that we have a system of government that will keep any charismatic individual from taking control of the government. It ain't gonna happen. Not in America. No way.

Yes, it makes many of us complacent, and that's its intent. We Americans should always know that whoever we vote for, or don't vote for, isn't going to assume the total power of a tyrant. And that gives us the right to be nonchalant. Who cares who's elected? He/she won't impose military rule over us. He/she won't invade our homes, looking for traitors to "the state". He or she won't make us all assume one religion or risk death.

We don't vote as often as we should precisely because, as Americans, we know that no one who is elected to high office can, single-handedly or single-mindedly, make our lives a living hell. And we know it because our Founding Fathers (probably with help from their wives), put it into writing: our Constitution.

It's ironic that the most democratic nation on earth has one of the largest percentages of citizens who never vote -- for anyone or anything -- but, if you think about it, it's understandable. Most of us are okay with our lives and accept the minimal governmental intrusion that's required to keep the system running: e.g., the IRS looking into our finances. Most of us think that whoever is elected is going to be monitored, kept an eye on -- by Congress and the courts -- so that no one who seeks to do us all wrong will escape detection: sooner or later, the scofflaws will be caught.

So let's not lament the lack of voting in this country. Instead, let's chalk it up to a trust we all have in the system -- very old, very thought-out, very tested over the years -- that will detect and/or catch the occasional shyster who rises too high for his/her britches. We'll get you sooner or later. We, the system, the people, and those we elect -- of either party -- to safeguard our rights.

As Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the other ones."

Americans are lax in our support of democracy because we take it for granted. It's our strength.

But we must not let it also be our failing. Yes, we should vote, if just to keep the system going.
And we should think hard about who we are voting for. Even a proven system like our own can be perverted. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean that it can't be.

Nobody in Germany saw Hitler for what he was because nobody had seen anybody like him before, so they didn't recognize him until it was too late.

As someone else said, "The price of democracy is constant vigilance."

Don't vote, if you choose not to, but at your peril. And mine. And ours. Enough said.

Bicycles and cars are natural enemies.

This may not seem to apply to you, if you don't ride a bicycle, but you probably do drive a car. And you've probably seen a bicyclist sail through a stop light or stop sign and secretly wished that he/she would get smacked by a car, right? Just to teach him/her a lesson, right? Not your car, of course, but somebody's car.

If you reacted with horror to what I just said, then you are an honorable person who would never wish ill will on another person. Good for you. On the other hand, if you silently said "Yes!", then you are a driver of cars who resents bicycle riders who flaunt the traffic laws and drive you crazy and need their come-uppance . Maybe you've had one whiz by in front of you when you were trying to turn right or whatever. Maybe you had to brake fast to avoid running over one of them. Maybe you felt your heart race and cursed them, aloud or silently.

It's important to remember the difference between riders of bicycles and drivers of cars. First, the bicycle is a flimsy contraption made of tubes of steel or, more likely, aluminum or some other lightweight metal. The car, any car, is made of steel. The bike weighs, at best, twenty pounds. The car weighs two thousand pounds or more. If a biker runs a stop sign or a stop light and smacks into a car, or is smacked into by a car, who do you think is more likely to end up dead?



I ride a bike and also drive a car, so I can appreciate both perspectives.



Drivers of cars think that bicyclists should obey all the traffic laws that drivers have to. Fair enough, right? Well, yes and no.



It takes much more effort for a bicyclist to stop at a stop sign or stop light and then start up again than it does for the driver of a car. A cyclist has to stop, put a foot down on the pavement, then start to pedal again -- at what may seem to motorists stopped at the same sign or light as a snail's speed. Jeez, can't you just get going, dude?

The car driver has only to step on the gas to get going again, while the biker has to step on the pedal and try to get up enough speed to make it across the intersection before the cars start going again. So what if a biker approaches an intersection where no cars are present? Do you really think he/she should come to a complete stop? Why?

I think, as a bike rider and also a car driver, that bikers should treat stop signs as Yield signs: stop if someone is coming, but otherwise just go. Stoplights are a different story. All bikers should stop at them. And wait. But what if no car pulls up behind or next to you, and the light never changes? I've observed that stop lights don't change for people on bicycles. You can wait and wait and wait and never get a green light. So I would say that, after you've waited through what you think are more than a few light changes, with no change in lights, you have the right to dart across the street and continue on your way. Again, if you're hit by a car, it's your fault.

What drives drivers of cars crazy is bikers who show a total disregard for traffic laws: running stop signs and lights without even slowing down. And I agree on that. Anyone on a bike needs to show regard for prevailing traffic. No, we bikers aren't going to cause any car drivers serious harm if we ignore the laws, but if they do hit us, it's going to cause them lots of grief and sorrow and resentment and maybe legal problems. So we need to be mindful of cars -- and vice versa.

Let's all respect each other, okay? When I'm riding my bike, I will obey stop lights -- unless no car is there to trigger the mechanism that makes it change -- and I will treat stop signs as Yield signs: slow down, and if no car is present or coming, I'll go. I will ride on the right side of the road and will give arm signals when I'm turning. I will wear a helmet and bright-colored shirt so that you, the driver, can see me.

You, the driver, will recognize my right to share the road with you when there's no bike trail available and will do your best not to run over me, since I and my bike weigh about a tenth of what you and your car weigh. If I disobey the traffic rules and get run over by you -- assuming you were following the rules -- I will not sue you.

A deal?


One last note: There are drivers of cars who seem to resent people who ride bicycles. Many times I've had teen boys -- always a carful -- shout at me as I rode along in my bike lane. What their problem is I'm not sure, but I like to think that it has something to do with the idea that they know they should be out doing something physical themselves and don't like the sight of anyone actually exercising. Get over it, boys. And get a bike.

Excuse me now while I go fill up my car with $4 a gallon gas.

Being rich isn't a sin, but . . .

All sorts of us get rich. Some by inheriting money we don't deserve. Others by inventing something that the rest of us can't get enough of. Others by stealth and even crime. Or by becoming a rock star. A few of us even win the lottery.


There are lots of ways, in our society, to get rich. And just being rich doesn't make us either good or bad. It's what we do with our newfound wealth that counts.

Andrew Carnegie endowed libraries (all in his name, but that's another subject), and other billionaires have built wonderful public works. Even today, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have a foundation that gives millions to stamping out malaria in Africa. (Also in their names.)

But what if you're new to riches and have only now just figured out that you're worth not just a lot of money but a whole lot more than you ever expected? What are you supposed to do with that extra money, the money you know you can't spend no matter how hard you try?

I have liberal friends who think that anything you make more than what you need to live on should be directed back to the community to help those who struggle just to get by. Give to the local food bank, the United Way, to any and all charities who need your help. How can you not?

But part of me says, I earned it, and I get to spend it any way I want. Right?

Right up to a point. You/I earned it, but we're part of a bigger enterprise called city or county or nation. We're part of a web of people who work for us and support us and sometimes need our help. All those people who clean our houses and our schools, and the courthouse, not to mention the women's room at our local gym (or the men's). The trash haulers, who have kids who need to have the same quality of education as our kids have. Don't we owe them, too?

Wealth is neither a sin nor a virtue. If you've been fortunate enough to make more money than you think you can spend in your lifetime, and if you've set your kids up with trust accounts that will pay them a certain amount once they reach a certain age, and if you have as big a house as you and your mate can possibly keep clean without significant paid help, and if you still find yourself with lots of money left over . . . maybe it's time to think of who your extra dollars might benefit.

Begin by checking with the charities in your town. The agency that shields battered women from their violent exes is a good place to start, as it usually involves kids, who are totally innocent, and those places never have enough money. Animals that have been abandoned and are almost surely condemned to death -- what we used to call "the pound" -- is another place to put your surplus money. Keep those animals alive a little longer, get them healthy, and someone may want to adopt them. And of course almost all our cities harbor homeless people who may be mentally disturbed but may also just be guys who lost their minimum wage job and can't afford rent. Whole families end up on our streets. Should anybody's children have to live in carboard boxes? There are agencies in every city and town that will be glad to take your money.

I applaud Bill Gates and others who are trying to stamp out diseases in foreign countries, but I wish the truly rich among us -- those who have more than they can possibly spend in a lifetime and whose families are already provided for -- would divert at least part of their wealth to the neediest among us, right here in America, which is not the promised land to lots of us.

I'm not particularly religious but I do remember my Sunday school lessons. Jesus said that "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

It's not a sin to be rich, but it may be a sin to die rich.

If you're rich and you aren't a poetry fan, I would recommend two: "Ozymandias" by Shelley (written 200 years ago) and "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

If they don't shame you into sharing, nothing will.

Nobody fixes anything anymore.

What do you do with a toaster that won't toast? A VCR that won't record? A lamp that won't light the room? How about a washer that won't work on all its cycles? A dryer that makes a sound like a horse being tortured (I had that one)? And then there's that computer that keeps locking up.


Who will fix these things?


Simple answer: Nobody.


In our throw-away society, nobody fixes anything. When it doesn't work, we throw it away. Meaning that we put it into our trash container and say bye-bye. Off to the landfill.

Bon voyage!

There was a time, within my lifetime, when people made a living repairing appliances. In fact, the whole idea of Goodwill Industries, if I'm not mistaken, was to take donated items that didn't work anymore and give disabled people -- who were largely unemployable in those days --the job of repairing them. Goodwill has long since been transitioned into an after-sale thrift store where not just those of us on minimum wage salaries but the well-to-do shop for bargains. A throw-away society throws away perfectly good items, in working condition, and smart shoppers are there to snatch them up.

I was struck by how far up the price chain this mentality had gone when I had a copier that was mal-functioning. It got stuck and wouldn't make copies -- which is the only thing it had to do. I checked the Yellow Pages and called a copier repair shop. Sorry, they said, that one is obsolete, and we can't get parts. Obsolete? I paid $400 for it two years ago! So now what am I supposed to do with it?

You know the answer: the landfill.

We have, in my town, one shop that will repair things. Tucked away downtown in a space I'm sure his landlord would love to turn into a Starbucks, this guy fixes lamps and toasters and most applicances that don't involve electronic circuits. But once he's gone, where will all those lamps go? And the toasters? And the curling irons or hair-dryers that just need a new cord?

Yes, I know we can "re-cycle" our old computer components -- monitors, printers, even the computers themselves -- in a responsible fashion, so as not to unleash too much mercury, or whatever other contaminants, into the air, often for a charge. But the point remains: Why doesn't someone repair some of these relatively expensive items? When did it become more profitable to just ditch whatever didn't work and buy a new one?


I assume it's when electronics became more sophisticated, when watches became digital and we suddenly had microwave ovens and VCRs. Once you couldn't go inside a machine and replace worn-out parts -- because there weren't any -- the whole repair industry just sort of went away.
(I'm sure you've noticed that almost no one works on their own cars these days, but because new ones are way too expensive to buy more than once a decade or so, there IS an automotive repair industry, and a very lucrative one at that -- precisely because we can't do the repairs ourselves.)

But if the boom in complicated electronics it has been bad news for the folks who made their living fixing things, it's worse news for us consumers: when something breaks now, we know we're going to have a replacement. And we also have to feel guilty about throwing away an item that we KNOW someone could fix -- but no one will. (And we don't know how.)


But it's not just the broken things that we are getting rid of at an alarming rate nowadays. A computer or monitor in perfect working condition that's more than a few years old can't be GIVEN away! Not even under-funded schools in poor neighborhoods want them. I have, as I'm sure you have, some of these machines sitting around, gathering dust. We don't want to part with them, because they still work, but we can't donate them because they're not wanted, but still we need the space.

Yeah, you know the answer: the landfill. Yes, as I said before, there are ways to recycle these things, and some of us do, but lots more of us don't. I've heard that our landfills -- dumps, we used to call them -- are filled mostly with newspapers. I have no doubt that, within a decade or two, they will be mostly filled with old computers and computer components.

Why?

You know why. Nobody fixes anything anymore.

I guess my point is that we've gone from a society that conserves and values what we have, fixing it when it's broken, passing it on to someone a little less well off when we get a new one, using it again and again, to one that sees every item as disposable, easily replaceable. It's a fundamental mental shift. A new, and disturbing, paradigm. I'm sure it has dire implications for the environment, but it's also troubling for what it says about us and who we've become.

There is, I think, something intrinsically wrong with wasting anything, especially when many of the people in the world don't even have electricity, much less a computer. Or a toaster.

Speaking of which, I'm giving mine one more minute to pop that piece of bread up. I'm timing it on my digital watch. (My old analog one is in a drawer; it stopped working.) If it fails the test, you know where it's going. And you know where I'll be going soon after, right?

To K-Mart, of course. To get a new toaster.

Some cope; some don't.

My sister said this to me when she was 16 years old and married to a guy who worked in a gas station and was pregnant. By the time she was 20, she'd had three kids. At 44, she was dead.


(Just to get it out of the way, cause of death was hypothermia: she went to sleep in her bedroom with the windows wide open, in winter, in Dallas, Texas, after her husband had left her, taking their three children. The authorities said she had a heart condition.)


In his defense, her husband was a very honorable guy who didn't realize who he was marrying and what the consequences would be. He was 18 at the time, from a small town in Oklahoma. I'm sure he saw her at a local drive-in and was smitten. She was very pretty.


So far as I know -- and we're out of touch these days -- all those kids are still alive, but I have no idea who they are or how they turned out. I hope they're all happy, but I doubt it.


He coped; she didn't.


My sister Nancy was right about what she said, but I'm not sure she knew that it would apply to her. I think she was thinking of women in the many novels she read, who left their husbands or stayed married and, in either case, committed suicide. Unhappy women. Role models for a less than happy life.


Later, when I was a grad student in English, I encountered the poems of Sylvia Plath and ended up writing about her. She was as smart as anyone can be and wrote poems that are astonishing in their word choice and phrasing, etc., but she, like my sister, had something missing -- a gear? a perspective? a what? She put her head in an unlit oven when she was barely 30 and turned the gas on. Her husband had been screwing around on her. The woman he left her for ended up killing herself, too, and taking their child with her. (He had a way with women, no?)


(To her credit, Sylvia pushed towels into the doorway to her children's bedroom so that they were spared. They're both grown now and apparently doing okay.)

So some cope, and some don't. What does that mean?


I think it means that some of us, from birth, and for no reason that we can ascertain, are given certain genes and/or abilities that let us keep going when others would give up. We can't tell until we're tested. Who knows which of us will fold and which of us will dig down deep and find what it takes to take the next step, to move on?


Think of people you've known who have gone through horrific personal and family tragedies and have come through remarkably well, while others, faced with the same traumas, have come all undone, reduced to weeping and, eventually, making themselves sort of a nuisance. (At some point, we want to say: Get hold of yourself. Move on. Buck up. And of course we feel guilty for thinking it.)

I saw it in Viet Nam: big, strong boys collapsing into tears, while others, lesser specimens of the male gender, doing heroic deeds, even risking their lives. I saw an ex-athlete paralyzed by fear and saw a grade school English teacher, drafted against his will, run up to an enemy foxhole that held a machine gun that was keeping us all pinned down and throw a grenade in.

Go figure, huh?

It's very convenient to say that people like my sister or Sylvia or whoever you know with seemingly endless problems is just suffering from "depression"-- our latest "buzz word" -- meaning that life has gotten him or her down, and if they'd lived in a different time, they would have been just fine because now we have drugs to fix those problems. But I think that's just a convenient way of putting these people in a certain category -- depressed -- and pushing their problems under the carpet, so to speak. Yes, some of them could have been helped, but a good many of them may just not have been equipped from the beginning to cope with what life threw at them, or maybe their early lives may have so damaged them that they couldn't cope later on.

There seems to be an in-born resilience, a forging-ahead mentality, that some of us have and others of us don't. I think that certain people are equipped from the onset with the ability to deal with catastrophes and horrible losses and setbacks and betrayals, and some aren't.

And there's no judgment to be passed: it's just the way it is.

I don't think my sister or Sylvia could have done anything but what they did. That's who they were and how they were programmed. No blame should be attributed to their parents or their spouses. No one could see anything terrible coming, and no one could do anything to change the outcome. Some of us are just doomed. We have early death written all over us from an early age.

We don't all come into this world the same, as blank slates, ready to be whoever we were meant to be. Some of us arrive with mental problems or in circumstances -- poverty, abuse, etc. -- that limit our possibilities. Others are born to privilege, with a BMW to drive when they're barely sixteen and a good life all planned out. But some of the former succeed, while some of the latter fail. What's that all about?

Humans are mysteries. Each human is a brand new mystery. We come from here, but we wind up there. We soak up the lessons and then do the opposite. We know right from wrong but act like we don't. We are so independent and then end up needing all the help we can get. I used to know where I was going, but now I don't know why I'm here. Everything has gone wrong, and I don't know how to fix it, how to make it right. I'm losing control.


At that point, some cope and some don't. Some of us, regardless of upbringing -- rich or poor -- rise to the occasion and move ahead, while some us just give up and fall into ruin. Some of us go for that better job; some of us go on welfare or move back in with the parents. Psychology, for all its insights and benefits, is at a loss to predict which will do which.


Maybe the answer is drugs. I know lots of smart people on anti-depression medicine. But I suspect the answer lies deeper, within us all. I suspect some of us are just born with a survival instinct that keeps us going when things are looking their bleakest and that some of us don't have it. But surely there's a way to track that down, scientifically, and gene-splice it into all the future generations of us, right? That indomitable will to live?


Let's just hope so, for ourselves and our children and grand-children and all their children and grand-children. And let's hope it's soon. Too late for Nancy and Sylvia, and for so many others, but maybe not too late for our eternally hopeful but sure-to-be troubled descendants.

Maybe more will cope than don't.

Life is short: get to the point.

How often has someone you know "beat around the bush" about something he or she really wanted to talk with you about? Your behavior, your spouse, his or her behavior or spouse? Your hairdo? His or her job? Not actually saying what was wrong or what you were expected to do about it, or how to respond? And how often have you done the same?

Enough. Let's cut to the chase. What are you saying? And what do you want the other to say in response? Why all the games? To spare feelings? Don't. It only prolongs the agony.

We play these games of deception because we are a complicated species. We want this or that but can't ask for it directly. We want you -- or your spouse or friend or whoever -- to guess what we're thinking. But what a strain that puts on us spouses and friends and family members!

Can't you just come out and say it? Can't you ask us for this or that and then see if we say yes or no? Life is short; get the to the frigging point!

It's not that simple, of course. What we want, what we need - support, affirmation, just a good ear to hear us out -- is not easy to ask for, and we're all always hoping that you will guess it in advance and make an offer before we have to ask for it.

Good friends do that, don't they? And good family members? And attentive spouses/mates?

But we shouldn't be putting that burden on those who love us. We should be sorting things out ahead of time and asking for advice/support only after we've thought through all the options outselves. In short, we all reach times in our lives when we need others, but if you reach a point that you're -- in the worst case -- on the brink of suicide or insanity or a nervous breakdown, be specific about what you want from those you turn to. Money? A place to stay? (And for how long?) Moral support? Help with a resume? Protection from an abusive spouse?

Be specific. Those you are turning to for help have their own lives, and problems you can't begin to imagine because you're so overwhelmed by your own.

But be honest and to the point in relationships, too. If you're only looking for someone to have fun with -- or sex with -- make that clear. Don't lead someone into thinking you want to marry him or her if you have no intention of doing so. That leads to endless phone calls and emails you don't want to answer.

And don't keep putting off those neighbor/friend lunches with lame excuses when what you should really be saying is that you have no intention of ever having one of those lunches. Yes, you should think up a good excuse that lets you off the hook, but don't just keep putting it off, which only keeps the uninvited invitations coming, to the point of real social pain. Get to the point: I'm never going to have lunch with you. (But be diplomatic, okay?)

We all play games -- in our jobs, in our social lives, in our relationships -- but the rule should be that we try to be as honest as our conscience allows us to be, always trying to spare the other person's feelings, but not leading him or her on. If we have no interest, we should say so as early on as we can, as kindly as we can. Cut it off, with consideration. But make the point: don't call me again. At least not about this.

Make yourself as plain as you can, and people will accept it. Except for the psychos among us, who insist on stalking long after they should have taken no for an answer, we are a remarkably flexible and understanding lot. You don't want to date me? You don't want to publish my book? You don't want to . . . fill in the blank. No means no. Maybe means maybe: call me again, and we'll talk. But no promises.

Consider how honest you would be in these scenarios:

"I don't think you're treating me fairly, and I'm looking for another job." (Instead of secretly calling other companies about employment possibilities, sending out your resume on company time, etc.)

"I don't like the way you cut my hair." (Instead of trying to figure out some kind of excuse for changing haircutters but hoping that the current one doesn't find out.)

"I don't think we're right for each other, and I want to start seeing other people." (Instead of coming up with endless reasons for not wanting to get together anymore: I'm washing my hair for the tenth time this week , or I've developed hives as an allergic reaction to something -- maybe you.)

"I hate coming to your house because you let your dog slobber all over me and hump my leg."
(Instead of -- again -- trying to come up with reasons not to get together anymore, at least at his/her house.)

"I think you're charging me too much, so I'm taking my business elsewhere." (Instead of just not doing business there again and hoping you don't encounter that person out on the town.)

It goes on and on. In our daily lives: our business dealings, our relatonships, our families. We don't want to come to the point. We beat around the bush. We waste our time and others' time, too. We delay getting what we really need because we won't come out and say what we do or don't want, what we will or won't tolerate. We're afraid and shy and insecure. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. We don't want to be thought less of. Or rejected. We . . . fill in the blank.

Life is short; get to the point. It saves us all, in the end, not just time but needless pain and frustration.

Be bold and do it. Say what you mean and stick by it. And then move on.