Current Qualified Professional Asshole

It's been a weird old week this week. I've found myself unreasonably impatient and annoyed by the actions of other people. Not people who are close to me, but officialdom: The world. Politics. Organizations. Guys with loud leaf blowers. Slow people in supermarket aisles. Douchebags who drive with one arm out of the car window (I mean, what even is that?)

And when I called up the GI doctor to schedule an appointment, and the first available date was September 5th, I nearly blew my top - until I remembered that the person talking to me on the other end of the phone was human ( albeit a really really fucking irritating human) doing their job. No point shooting the messenger - not when you can sulk, toss over a snarky comment, and hang up instead.

But right now the person annoying me most is me. My thoughts annoy me. My face annoys me. My clothes even annoy me. I am - as they say- uncomfortable in my own skin.

And I have no reason for it. There's no immediate crisis with which I have to contend. Life is ok really. And that annoys me more - because what kind of asshole gets annoyed when everything's pretty much OK?

And I would talk to Mark about it, but he’s been busy building a new bee hive.

He built the first one years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. We felt so helpless that we decided we had to be able to do something positive in the world. And the world needs bees. So Mark built our beehive (Buzzywood) and we got some bees.

Turns out that he's really good at beekeeping (he's won prizes for his honey) and the bee colony has more than doubled in size. The time has come for him to split the hive. That means building a new hive (Honeywood) and buying a new queen to be their leader. Plus, there's no end to the douchebaggery in the world to feel helpless over. You have to keep doing something.

Anyway, a good friend of mine once told me that when you can't move your perspective out of the negative, go out and stand in the backyard, or stand under running water. (In certain parts of Scotland that amounts to the same thing). As I'd already had a shower that day and was still a miserable bastard, I opted for standing in the backyard.

And oooh and I was mad. My whole body oozed resentment: The world. People. That orange prick that used to be President. Fucking media terrifying us all the time. Fucking billionaires never having enough money that they don't want to squeeze out more. And wars. And more wars, all announced by people who will never face the wounds of the damage they’re inflicting.

Anyway, I was standing in the sun, hoping the light would burn off my rage, and I heard a buzzing noise.

“Oh fuck off, Audrey” I said.

(You may not know this but most of the bees in any hive are female. Thus we’ve named all the bees Audrey - apart from the 20 or so male drones, who are called Carson, and the Queen, I've called Margaret.)

Usually, just telling an Audrey to fuck off works. But the buzzing continued.

I looked around, and right in front of me was a tiny little Hummingbird trying to work out how to get past me to get to the big purple Salvia flowers. (Hummingbirds love Salvia like douchebag receptionists in GI doctors’ surgeries love telling you there's no appointment till September 5th.)

Anyway, this wee bird was persistent. And loudly hummy. And if I didn't know better, I could swear that this wee flying creature was humming “Asshole!” at me.

“Yeah, well takes one to know one,” I replied, moving belligerently out of the way. The bird moved directly to the flowers.

Across the yard, I noticed Genghis and the chickens were eyeing me with interest.

"What?” I said.

They clucked and shuffled a little, and carried on their business of looking for bugs, wisely deciding to stay out of it.

At that point, it crossed my mind that I may be a bit out of sorts. I mean, who cusses out a bee, then gets argumentative with a Hummingbird, and then gets all defensive about their behavior to a group of chickens?

An asshole, that's who. And it sucks to be an asshole. But what do you do when you find yourself being one and you can't quite shake yourself out of it? Because there's more than enough unfairness going on in the world to make even the most un-assholey individual a full-blown professional.

All around the yard, things were starting to bloom. Audreys buzzed from flower to flower, and really if I wasn't such a miserable bastard, I would have said it was truly beautiful.

In the far corner, Mark was suiting up to do a bee inspection. It's quite a tricky thing to split a hive. It's stressful for the person doing it and very irritating for the bees. But it has to be done. I worry about him, but I know he has it handled. I'm sure it might not feel that way where he’s standing, but we’re each often the last to see how capable we are.

Change can be messy - just ask anyone who has ever decorated a house. But change only ever comes when it’s necessary.

I looked down at the Salvia. My Hummingbird heckler had moved on. The flowers were magnificent in the sun. Just a couple of months ago that plant looked like it was dying. And yet now it stood, all resplendent and happy. It had just been growing, that’s all.

Nature is like that. In Nature, the only choice is to grow or to wither. But growth can be ugly. There's always a point in the middle when things look out of whack. (Nobody ever feels fancy when growing out an old haircut.) But without growth there is nothing.

Mark opened up the door of Buzzywood. Audreys buzzed around him, annoyed and confused. Unphased, he kept his focus. When the going gets choppy, is not the time to lose your nerve.

The recognition of that bathed me in a warm glow of possibility.

Change only comes with discomfort. In the history of everything, nobody ever said, “Hey I'm having a perfectly lovely time. What I'm going to do now is change.” It always comes because what was there before has been outgrown.

So clearly, I am going through change. What kind of change I don't know. But something new is yet to be uncovered. So rather than exhaust myself resisting my cranky old perspective, I decided to settle right into it, knowing it will pass.

Across the yard, I noticed Genghis and the chickens eyeing me with concern.

I turned to look at them.

“It’s true that not everybody in the world is an asshole.” I said, “But everybody is an asshole sometimes. And currently, that asshole is me.”

They clucked and shuffled a little, then stood, waiting.

“Snacks?” I said. That seemed to perk them up.

When your mood is shitty and you can’t snap out of it, I think it’s probably true that you’ll feel better standing under running water or outside in the sun. Because those two components are always good for growth.

Till next week

xo

Available on Amazon: (US, UK, AUS, CA).

The Audiobook version is also available on Apple Books and Audible.

Learn more about Lynn’s Story work at YouTellYours.com