I hear more stories of messed up families than you can imagine. A lot of pain in the family can be traced back to trivialities that add up: misbehavior
or indifference or selfishness. The bad news is that families destroy themselves over trivialities. The good news is that trivialities can be changed!
By whom? By you, yes you! You have the power to make positive changes in the life of your family. So I am going to give you this challenge for this
coming week: remove all forms of sarcasm from your vocabulary. The word “sarcasm” comes from a Greek word meaning, “to tear flesh like dogs.” There is never a good time to tear someone’s flesh. That is my challenge to you. For one week: no sarcasm. To get the most out of this challenge, observe these simple rules.
- Keep this our little secret! Do not tell anyone in your family what you are doing. Just quietly do it.
- Resist the urge to correct someone else, or to retaliate. Those behaviors defeat your purpose. (Closely related: do not send this post to a family
member and tell them they need to do it. Even if they are the most sarcastic person you know. You go first!) - When someone is sarcastic to you, or when you otherwise feel the urge to be sarcastic, picture yourself taking that feeling into your hands, and putting
it up on a very high shelf. “Yes, Desire for Sarcasm: I see you up there. I’m in charge of you: you are not in charge of me! I am not taking you
down off that shelf!”
Are you up for it? I am betting you can improve the quality of your family’s life THIS WEEK, RIGHT NOW! At the end of the week, send me a note, telling
me how it went. I will send you a free gift! And, I may feature your comments on this blog. Send your note to info@ruthinstitute.org Your friend,
“Dr. J” Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President of the Ruth Institute PS: We don’t do comments on this blog. But you can “like” the Ruth Institute’s Facebook page,
and post comments there!
