strong coffee

I don't often like to be too assertive.  And not just in big situations...I would refuse to give an opinion about where to go for dinner if I felt like I was stepping on someone's toes.  Part of this is that I am generally a laid-back person; I'll adapt to the new plan pretty quickly.  But another part - a large part - comes from the fact that I don't like to make waves.  I'll do some pretty stupid things to try to diffuse a tense situation.  I like to keep the peace.  And while this may make the people I'm around happy (which is important), it does not always lead to the happiest Anna.  Sometimes it leads to a stressed Anna.  And that Anna can only blame herself.

As a microscopic example, today I stood in the coffee shop for about 5 minutes weighing the pros and cons of telling the barista that my coffee was badly burnt.  Like, undrinkable-burnt.  Making you imagine throwing dollar bills away as you toss out a full coffee-burnt.  While this clearly isn't the end of the world, I didn't like the idea of wasting money, but I hated the idea of saying something to the barista.  My much more practical friend had to give me a pep talk, pointing out that they might in fact like to know that the beans weren't good.  I finally decided to be assertive.  Sure, I might have simultaneously been so apologetic that they didn't know what I wanted, but we got there.  And you know what?  They were so happy and gracious.  And I was happy.  Kind of made me think you can have both.  I'm at least going to try for that.