Life is too much fun to be stuck in the body of a complaining person.

At 5:30 am, I head to men’s group. I do it for the donuts. We get donuts and coffee, and I love blueberry donuts. There are few things that will get me to a meeting at o’dark.thirty in the morning, but a blueberry donut will.

After we stand around, munch and try to talk, we watch a video. This morning’s video is on patience, and it has a football theme. We watch and then we split into small groups, sit and talk.

Because many of the guys have kids in school, we meet during the school year only. Like the kids, we get holidays and summer off. And, we don’t take directions well. So, the coordinators assign new small groups each semester, but no leaders. We don’t follow the leader well.

“Ok, who wants to be leader today?” one of the guys asks. “You,” we all answer. “Ok,” but next time it rotates. . . .  First question, are we impatient?” “Yes,” “Sure,” “Dumb question,” echo around the table. “Ok, why?”

Silence.

“Control?” the guy beside me volunteers. “Yeah,” another chimes, “I have to control my boys. They never do what I ask when I ask. I have to complain, complain, complain.” “You got that right, my family has to be controlled. The dog doesn’t even listen to me.”

Laughter.

“At work, I have to control the workers.” “At work, I have to control the boss.”

More laughter.

“I’m taking a leadership course.” We listen more closely. “And they tell us, it’s not: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you;’ it should be: ‘Do unto others as they want you to do for them.’”

We think.

The guy beside me starts talking. “I went to a couples retreat with my wife and the coordinator said something about how not to let things build up. When I’m bothered by something my wife did, I’m not supposed to yell at her and tell her what to do, I should say, ‘That hurts me when you do that.’ When she hears those words, she’s not supposed to bring up the ten things I did in the last ten minutes that hurt her, she’s supposed to stop and say, ‘Tell me more about what bothers you. I want to understand. Will you forgive me?’ Then I forgive her and I don’t bring it up again.”

We all think some more.

The coffee is starting to help.

Across the table, our temporary leader scratches his head. “So, you’re both saying, if I understand you: don’t control them, control us?”

“I have small children.” It’s the young guy to my right. “When I get up in the night and walk down the hall to check the four-month old, I step on the boys’ toys. I used to yell into their room, and then someone gave me this book. It was about the little things you can change in your life. Put two teaspoons of sugar in my coffee instead of three. Don’t take the first piece of pie, pass it around and take a smaller piece. I thought about that, and after I said goodnight to the boys, I picked up their toys in the hall. Later, when I walked to the baby’s room, I stopped and watched the boys sleeping in their beds.”

“They’ll remember that.” It’s the older gent across the way. “They love you, and they’ll remember what you did for them.”

We all nod our heads.

“It’s 7:15,” our leader announces. “Time to leave. Next week, one of you guys is in control.”

Laughter, shaking hands, a good parting.

Until next week and another donut.

PATIENCE

We have to work on it.

And watch the sleeping babies.

Life is too much fun to be stuck in the body of a complaining person.

Grandpa Jim