Stubborn as a Mule

stubborn

adjective

• 1Having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good reasons to do so: you’re a silly, stubborn old woman

  More example sentences
• 1.1Difficult to move, remove, or cure: the removal of stubborn screws

Are you stubborn as a grass stain or as easy going as a light breeze on a warm day? Tell us about the ways in which you’re stubborn — which issues make you dig your heels in and refuse to budge?

Although I’m generally an easy going person and tend to go along with what people around me want I can be extremely stubborn at times. Sometimes this can be a good thing, for example if I am trying to do something with a computer I’ll worry away at it until I get it to work the way I want. I just hate to let it beat me.

It also means that once I form an opinion I don’t change it very easily. I won’t say I never change. Politically I’ve changed from the Right to the Left but it took over ten years.

If I decide I’m not going to do something it’s very hard to move me. I resisted when my cousin tried to persuade me to join the Girl Guides with her. I had made up my mind that it was not for me and nothing she could say could change it. She also tried to persuade me to go to the same high school as her and didn’t succeed in that either. I was more interested in the subjects being taught at the other high school in town and peer group pressure wasn’t going to change that.

On the other hand I can be very stubborn about things that really don’t matter at all.  For example, in the early 1970s when I was a teenager Daylight Saving Time was introduced in South Australia where I lived . Like many people at the time I wasn’t impressed with the idea, not because I thought that my chickens would stop laying or my curtains would fade. I just thought that it was messing with the sun and that if people wanted to have more free time to go to the beach after work they should all just start work an hour earlier. I often used to get up at 5:30 a.m. in those days and couldn’t see why others couldn’t do the same. Well, as I was too young to vote my thoughts counted for nothing and we got Daylight Saving anyway. I was having none of it though. I decided that the rest of the state could do as they pleased but there was no way I was putting my watch forward come October. I didn’t either, I can’t remember how long I kept it up for but it was at least a couple of years. I never put my watch forward or my alarm clock so for half the year I was out of sync with everyone else. If anyone asked me what time it was I told them the time by the sun. It didn’t change anything but I felt I had scored a point over the stupid Daylight Saving supporters. I think that in the end I realised that Daylight Saving Time wasn’t going to go away so I bowed to the inevitable. I actually don’t mind it now but only since we’ve lived in Tasmania where the climate is better and the extra hour of daylight doesn’t mean an extra hour of extreme heat.

Further Reading:

How To Be Stubborn