Bother

by Annette LaSelle

This weekend I was clunked on the head with another of life’s imponderables. When has a life been so simplified and sanitized that it no longer represents life? Is there a point that if you extract one more bit of bother from your life God will swoop down and demand his money back? I can hear him now, “Gimme back my life! You’re just not evolved enough to be a human being. You should have signed up on the request to be a bovine list. You’re at the Guernsey level. Now moo along.”

Life, according to an old saw, has its ups and downs. Everyone has his share of problems and everyone has his share of joys. And, everyone has his share of work. Where some people seem to get mightily confused is that there is a difference between Herculean tasks (big work) and bother (teensy work) in life.

Herculean tasks are invariably best avoided or handed off to the unsuspecting chucklehead. No one should welcome the chance to break up boulders with a sledge hammer, dig up dandelions with a teaspoon or unclog a sewer line with a wire snake. Although necessary, all human beings recognize that these are distasteful and difficult jobs that should be shunned. The world at large knows the correct response when offered one of these assignments is to politely say, “I pass. Give it to the guy over there who appears to need the extra credit.”

Bother is something all together different. Bother should be wildly chased, run down and then scooped up and pressed to one’s heart while you spin madly humming any Perry Como tune. (There was a man who bothered to make our hearts sing!) You see, almost invariably (contrary to Herculean tasks) bother leads directly to fun. Bother is inviting friends over for a home cooked meal. Bother is taking your elderly parents on a weekend outing. Bother is decorating for Christmas. Bother is adopting a puppy. Bother is what leads to a rich, full and happy life. Bother is not to be passed up.

Unfortunately there is this segment of the population that doesn’t understand. They just can’t be bothered to bother because, they fear, if they allow bother into their lives they will have more to do! And that is true, they will. However, the more-to-do that belongs to bother is distinctly different than the more-to-do that belongs to our typical day-to-day drudgery. Bother leads to euphoric feelings, drudgery leads elsewhere. Try replacing some work with some bother. You won’t miss the work and the bother will make you smile.

To coin a phrase, you need to give more than you receive. If you don’t give the receiving dries up. Ugly thought. I want to keep my getting going. So, I choose to be bothered and the more I am bothered the more others bother for me. Isn’t life grand?