Today's Think Piece

[drwex]

What are your rules for living?

(By this I mean things that don't get taught in conventional schooling. I'm not talking about the obvious like "don't walk out in the street in front of moving cars.")

Comments

[ariesd.livejournal.com]

(By this I mean things that don't get taught in conventional schooling. I'm not talking about the obvious like "don't walk out in the street in front of moving cars.")

What, wait, um, dude, I work in Boston, I walk out in the street in front of moving cars everyday!
---
Try not to go to bed mad.
Try to wake up happy.
---

[drwex]

Try not to go to bed mad.

I'm glad this works for you. In my past relationship with someone who had this rule it didn't work out well for me.

[larksdream]

Stayed up a long time, huh? *G*

[drwex]

Worse than that. She would start... I guess the polite term is "relationship discussions" on issues that had her upset around 11P or midnight when I wanted to go to bed. The result was staying up 'till 2 or 3A getting more upset because I was trying to get some rest so I could deal coherently and she was insistent that we not go to bed mad. Which made me madder.

[caulay.livejournal.com]

"Don't go to bed mad" does not mean "Resolve everything immediately when it comes up." That's taking it a lot further than I really think it's meant to go.

[drwex]

I quite agree. In this case she would be mad about something in the relationship and under this principle insist on working it out before going to sleep mad. It just never worked for me to do that.

[ariesd.livejournal.com]

Duuuuuuude.........

Sounds more like she believed that "Don't go to bed mad" was the same as "Don't go to bed until I've totally pissed you off and worked it out of *MY* system."

For me the idea stemmed from "Going to bed mad could possible hold the possibility that the person dies in there sleep and all you have is that last argument, and all they have is no time to say sorry." It might be frakked but I like little insurance policies on lifetimes of guilt over leaving certain things in a state where death adds more guilt. Neurotic? NO ITALIAN CATHOLIC!

[drwex]

she believed that "Don't go to bed mad" was the same as "Don't go to bed until I've totally pissed you off and worked it out of *MY* system."

Yes, that would be my perspective as well, but remember I'm biased. She would, no doubt, present a different view of the situation.

And, yes, that's a pretty neurotic point of view.

[ariesd.livejournal.com]

yeah my mother pulled the "We're not fighting we are having a discussion." line for a few years. Funny I never knew discussions included yelling and attempting to break household objects.

[ceo]

My high-school sociology teacher, a wonderful woman, was talking about her relationship with her husband (they were both retiring that year, per an old agreement that they would retire at the same time), and said "We've never gone to bed mad at each other... but we've stayed up all night mad at each other once or twice."

[coraline]

kind of reminds me of my grandmother's "i've never considered divorce. murder, sometimes, but never divorce."