Au Pair Lessons: Be a Duck

This advice comes curtesy of my mother. I don’t know if I just have the bad luck of constantly needing to interact with people that annoy me or I’m just easily irritated and dramatic (potentially a mix of the two), but you can bet that when I Skype home, at least one part of my conversation goes, “That thing they do is really annoying and uuuuugh. Why do they have to do it?!”*  Some of it can be dealt with and sorted out, but other things are just grin and bear it moments where it might be a personality thing or cultural difference. And so I have to learn to live with it. 

That’s not to say that it’s easy to just accept it and move on, but think of it in terms of who’s being bothered by it the most.  If it is something that you can’t change about the other person/s involved, most likely it’s driving you crazier than anything it’s doing to them and you’re the one who’s dealing with all sorts of annoyed and irritated feelings. By just letting it slide off your back, duck style, you’re using the control you do have in the situation to your advantage by not letting it bother you. Trust me: it’ll feel so much better when you decide not to let those things bother you anymore.

Obviously, any bigger issues that can be resolved should be resolved through discussion and compromises. It’s not saying that you have to put up with all sorts of BS, because you don’t and you shouldn’t have to. For those things, make sure you speak up and say that something’s not working very well and that you’d like for things to change.

 

*accurateness not 100%  guaranteed

 

Things I’m Loving:

+ 14 reasons to travel – (In case you needed one.)
+ Have some music – (To get your week started.)
+ About Canadian day care – (The Globe is doing a six-part series on it. Go check it out.)
+ 10 stadiums to watch football in – (Could probably be updated, but just to get you started.)