I maintain a list of future projects that I intend to complete someday. Many items are ideas for novels, characters, and plot lines. Also included in this list are ideas for future businesses, ways to surprise Elysha, new hobbies that I want to try, and much more.
I think of it as an expansion list. Either you’re relentlessly expanding your life in small and enormous ways, or you’re trapped in stasis, which sounds very much like death to me.
Included on this list was this item:
“Serve friends doggie treats.”
A Doggie Bakery in my town sells doggie treats that look precisely like human treats. Cookies, cupcakes, and other delicious pastries.
At least there was such a bakery. I found out today that it has gone out of business.
I had initially planned on serving these doggie treats to my friend, Tom, but after careful consideration, I decided that the wrath of his wife, Liz, might be too much to bear. Liz is also my friend, so tricking her husband into eating dog treats seemed far too dangerous.
So I switched my target to my friend and colleague, Cindy, which was crazy at the time and would still be crazy today. She’s definitely more dangerous and frightening than Tom and Liz combined, and she teaches next door to me, giving her ample opportunity to enact her possible revenge whenever she saw fit, but there’s something about an angry spouse that seems a hell of a lot worse than an angry friend.
Angry friends are angry on their own behalf, so their anger is often fleeting and manageable.
Anger today quickly becomes a shared laugh tomorrow.
But a spouse’s anger can last a lifetime. Even worse, it can burn like the heat of a thousand suns. I’ve seen this phenomenon firsthand. Elysha remains angry with people who have done me wrong even though I have forgiven them years or even decades later.
The same holds true for me. I seethe with anger over people who have done my wife wrong, even though she and that person have a perfectly fine relationship today.
Spousal anger, it turns out, can last a lifetime.
Sadly, I didn’t act quickly enough on feeding my friends doggie treats. The idea was on my list for more than a decade, and now the opportunity is lost.
Let this be a lesson, too:
In addition to constantly relentlessly expanding your life, it’s also essential to act quickly. You never know when a door may close on an opportunity forever.
A bigger life is always a better life.
