My friend put this in his journal recently and I realized I hadn’t actually posted it for those of you who don’t know this rule….
The 15 Minute Rule… I am stealing this idea entirely from kellesparta, who is extremely wise:
I hereby present the following tool to help those of you out there who, like myself, are interested in making 2003 a Drama-Free year.
The 15 Minute Rule
This Rule can be invoked any time someone else tries to bring their Drama into your life.
It goes something like this…
Okay, before you say anything else, I just have one thing to say. I am invoking the 15 Minute Rule.
This means you now have 15 minutes to bitch about your problem. That’s not just 15 minutes now, that’s 15 minutes forever. Which means you can never bitch about the same thing again.
Once your 15 minutes are up, you have 1 of 4 choices:
- You can shut up.
- You can change the subject.
- You can go bitch to someone else.
- Or you can start working on a solution to your problem.
If you choose anything but the last option, it is no longer my problem. Your 15 minutes starts… now.
* This is part of an ongoing series of posts detailing what happened on a spiritual pilgrimage that I took in 2002. To start from the beginning, go to July 2, 2013. To see the entire spiritual journey as it gets published, click on the category “You Want Me To Do WHAT?!!?” to see all of the posts.
