Remaining Optimistic

Sometimes remaining optimistic can be a challenge. For the most part, I do my best to remain optimistic, but there are those times when it just really is too challenging. I will readily admit it, the thing that affects me most toward losing my optimistic attitude is another person who I allow to affect it.

Most days I don’t mind being a servant. I’ve pretty much resolved that this is my role for the most part in this life. So I’ve learned to suck it up most of the time and just do what I can for others who may directly impact my life or indirectly through providing a service to another person who is not usually a part of my life. I mean being kind to strangers is what life should be all about, right? I didn’t quite get this one right today.

But then there are those days when someone just pushes that envelope a little too far over your boundaries of remaining positive and optimistic. This is so clear to me today, because I had an incident. I had some groceries delivered rather than going out today. I noticed the driver taking forever to take the picture and leave my groceries when I heard my ring alert me that someone was at my door. He just kept standing there, so I finally opened the door, he hadn’t yet even thought to ring the doorbell since my instructions are for the groceries to just be left on the bench. 

He demanded rather than kindly asking for my household WiFi password, because his phone wasn’t picking up reception in order to close out his order for delivery. I told him, I don’t give out my WiFi password and that this is an ongoing problem with some of our delivery drivers  (namely. his company) and the other delivery drivers have managed to figure out how to get closed out for their deliveries. I told him to just take a picture of the grocery bags with codes and when he gets further down the hill he will get reception and will be able to upload it into his application. He insisted that it would not work that way. I asked him if he was new (because then I would be more understanding). He told me no. I told him, I would not give him my WiFi password — after reading further into the matter, it is highly suggested by his own company to never give out your WiFi password to anyone asking for it. So 10 minutes later, my doorbell rings, it is him. (I knew I should have never answered it knowing it was him again.)  He had driven off and then came back. He is asking for my barcodes off my bags, which I have since efficiently put in my garbage. He ended up taking a picture of the barcodes torn off my bags on is console as he got further down the hill where there was reception. I think his company needs to figure a way to upload a photo of delivery address and bags from a phone into their application. I think I was mostly irritated because Safeway uses third parties to deliver sometimes and they go to the extent of sealing up the bags with staples so I can enjoy the luxury of contactless delivery — today that did not happen and I was irritated by the insistence of this guy who couldn’t troubleshoot for himself and his company who didn’t offer a better solution for their employees and that I had to dig in my garbage to tear off the barcodes for his genius solution. I’m not proud but I even used an explicit word as I dug through my trash. He offered to take the entire bag of garbage — I told him no to that request as well. He knew he had frazzled me and proceeded to offer me excuses about that this was no one’s fault, but rather a lack of internet. I just kept thinking to myself, it is your fault you have a phone that doesn’t get internet access and that this certainly was not my problem.  All I wanted was my paid for groceries delivered and for him to collect his 20% tip that I wished I had not even given at this point. I did not want to have interaction with anyone, especially someone who was clearly irritating. Needless to say, Safeway made the mistake of shortly after, sending me a survey. I’m usually impressed with the service I receive, but I gave a fair review of my experience when it came to delivery of my groceries today. My optimism was shot and it actually made me physically sick soon after (I’ll skip the details).

So then I tried to regain my composure and continued my routine, but then I started thinking about how I had once again failed in maintaining my composure when interacting with someone who clearly irritated me. It takes a lot for me to get irritated by someone, for the record. When I think of it, it was probably a build up from other irritating things that were happening to me today as I was doing three loads of laundry, ordering groceries (which I had saved that task for tomorrow), ordering Amazon items, taking down Christmas decorations, tearing down cardboard boxes from Christmas to go into the garbage cans for tomorrow’s pick up (injuring my hands), etc. The delivery guy was the last straw and just one more thing for me to handle today (along with digging in trash). Then, instead of me just letting it go, I kept beating myself up for not being nicer and handling the situation better. Then I started to think about how I’ll probably end up in hell — I know dramatic.

Then I started to self-talk myself into remembering that hell is not my goal in this life and that I had to do better next time. So, this is how my last day of 2025 ends? So I decided to blog about it.