How to be happy

I have spent a great deal of today trying not to feel very grumpy about a chap who got out of my taxi and buzzed off without paying at the end of last night.

It is not easy not to let this sort of thing eat me up from the inside with crossness, which is a bad idea because of course it makes me upset and angry. This feels horrid, and does him no harm at all.

I was cross because it was a wealthy couple of my own age, not teenage nuisance boys, who are the usual culprits for this sort of rascally deed. They lived in an enormous house with an electric gate and decided that they thought the taxi fare was too expensive, and so they would rather not pay it. The man said, correctly, that this was why he lived in a million pound house and I didn’t.

They were very drunk.

His telephone number was on the back of his van outside, so I rang it up this morning to see if he was any nicer when he was sober. He wasn’t, so I called the police, who are fairly sympathetic when it comes to a working life spent in close proximity to intoxicated nuisances, and the kindly constable on the phone promised to go round to see if they could extract it from him.

I am waiting to find out about what happens when they do.

I am trying to let go of it now, and not keep going over it in my head again and again. It is the most tiresome part of things going wrong in this way, that you wake up in the night feeling cross about it and remembering ways in which you have been aggrieved.

I don’t want to be an aggrieved person, because it makes my throat feel tight and my heart beat too fast, and I don’t like the feeling at all.

In order not to be aggrieved I have got to think about it a bit more.

In fact it is thirty five pounds, which in the grand scheme of things is not a very great deal of money, although handy when it comes to paying instalments on teapots. I feel cross because he has got thirty five pounds that I think ought to be rightfully mine.

However at this stage of my weekend it is not mine. No matter what I think ought to be happening, right at this moment, he has got thirty five pounds and I have not.

That is not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination. If I were to feel cross with everybody who had thirty five pounds instead of me then I would be very grumpy for most of the time, and probably read The Guardian. On the whole, when it comes to money, having it is what counts, rather than thinking what the world owes to me.

On the other hand, if the bank manager came round to my house feeling grumpy about the amount of money that is rightfully his but that I have recklessly squandered on teapots and sheepskin body warmers then I would just shrug my shoulders in a French sort of way and suggest that he do his worst. Blood out of stones, etc. He would be left gnashing his teeth whilst I would have a nice teapot and not care in the least.

Also, Mr. Buzzoffwithoutpaying was not only ugly in his big flabby face, but also throughout his whole soul. He was sour and mean and bitter. I would not like to be inside his black heart for a single minute, even though he has got thirty five pounds and I have not. I have got more contentedness in every minute of every lovely day, with my splendid husband and fine children, than he can ever have felt. I know this because if he did know how it was to live happily, he could not possibly have been so smirkingly malicious.

I don’t know about the million pound house, because I am sure it would be very nice to have one, and he obviously liked the idea very much. All the same, I can’t imagine that I would be any happier in a big million pound house than I am in my little not-a-million-pound-house, which is warm and beautiful and safe. I think that the thing about houses which makes a person happy is when you can live in one without any dreadful gnawing anxiety about money.

I think if he was so worried about thirty five pounds then unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings about money might well be happening to him. I think one of the nicest feelings is to pay properly for everything and to tip generously, leaving other people feeling glad and happy that you have been there. I like that feeling very much.

I feel better now. I am not being eaten up from the inside any more. Life is nice, and I am happy. I do not want to lose my happiness for the sake of thirty five pounds.

It is worth loads more than that.