Imagine one day you decide to throw a party for all your friends.
You get out your phone, and you start inviting people. You want a really big party. So you say, anyone can come. And on the big day, you get your place ready for the party. And you're really excited to see everyone. And pretty soon, the guests all start arriving. After a while, everyone you're expecting arrived, and you're having a really good time. And then the doorbell goes, and you think I wonder who that is, must be someone I forgotten about. And it is someone who you definitely did not want at the party, that your neighbor, Brian.
Brian has to be one of the most annoying people you know, he's rude, grumpy, he moans a lot. And he's not so flash on personal hygiene. He's the last person you want at your party. But before you know it, he goes straight inside, without even saying hello. He goes up to your guests. And he's rude. He helps himself to drinks and food. And he generally acts a little weird towards your friends. Understandably, you feel pretty upset and embarrassed and angry. And before long you ever Brian and tell him, that's it, it's time for you to go. And you throw him out of your party. Once he's gone, you feel relieved. You go back to the party and start to enjoy yourself.
But after a while, you hear the doorbell again. And when you go to check who it is, you realize Brian has come back. And before you can stop him, he opens the door races back into the party. So you go out and get him and throw him out again. This time though, you decide you're going to make sure he doesn't come back. So you decide to stand by the door and make sure he can't get back in. And this works fine. Brian can't get back in and you feel good about this.
The trouble is you realize that all the while you're missing out on a party, you can hear everyone else outside having a good time. You want to be out of the party too. But because you can't stand Brian, you can't risk him coming back in again.
You don't know what to do. You really want to enjoy the party. But the thought of Brian being there really gets to you.
After a while you realize that actually, this party is pretty important to you. And you want to be with your friends. At the very least just to make sure they're okay. So you decide to go back out and you say to yourself if Brian comes out, that's how it goes.
And sure enough, after a couple of minutes, Brian comes back in and starts being annoying again.
But this time, something's different. You don't ignore him, because he's pretty hard to ignore that you decide just to get on with a party and talk with your friends. And you start to notice some interesting things.
First, you find that even though Brian is still there, you're actually having an okay time. Sure it would be better if he went home. But at least you're not stuck at the door missing out on the party.
Second, you notice that when you're not trying to get rid of him all the time, he calms down a bit.
He's still a pain. He still smells, but he's not so rowdy.
And then after that, you start to notice some other things about Brian you hadn't actually seen before. Like then he has a quirky sense of humor, even though it's buried pretty deep, and even makes a couple of friends of yours laugh.
And you wonder to yourself, what do you do next time you have a party?
