I’ve tried the serenity prayer without god and I’m reading the subtle art of not giving a f*ck, but it’s not enough. The book is good though.
There are still moments when people really piss me off and while I’d like that not to affect me, my first instinct is still to feel anger and to hate the jackass making my life or work difficult. Sometimes I’d like to punch him in the face.
It could be the plumber who doesn’t come on the agreed day, the technician who ‘repaired’ a tv set, only to have the same issue the next day, a coworker who keeps yelling when I’m trying to work and even after asking him not to be loud, blatantly ignores me or coworkers who importunate me with stupid questions about my weekend.
A strategy I’m going to use now at the workplace is to ignore every non related job question from these people and only answer when they ask something job related. As for the plumber, the hate usually subsides after 2 days, but I’d like to be more resilient, not to jump to anger and hate so easily.
It’s like I’m emotionally very easy to trigger.
I don’t know if you agree with this sentence: A person who yells does it because he doesn’t have power to modify a situation to his advantage, because he is powerless.
This is how I feel sometimes.
I think arriving to the ability to not let this trigger you requires a lot of little decisions and changes. Like accepting that people will fail or suck at their job, being able to roll with shit, having alternate/backup plans… Like if the cable guy was coming today, then I’d have shit planned to do around the house and I wouldn’t plan anything else that day. I’d game, clean, do chores, do outside projects, change the car oil, whatever needs to be done nearby that I can take a break from when they finally show up. Small businesses I’d probably call in the morning and verify they’re showing up for sure that day.
I guess it’s a combination of assuming the worst case scenario and focusing on what you can control. (“Plan fo the worst, hope for the best”) So in the case of the shitty co worker, I’d ask them to tone it down. If they won’t, then what can I do? Can I move elsewhere? If I can’t I might ask the supervisor if they can get my desk moved. Of course they are going to do the easier job of telling Jack wagon to stfu but now it’s coming from the supervisor. I can control the coworker, but I can control myself, I can try to manipulate the situation. There might be other options depending on the situation like putting in earbuds and refraining from clubbing them like a baby seal.
But yeah, I agree. I think a person yells when they think they have no power over the situation. I grew up being yelled at all the time it’s very easy for me to fall into that trap too and I understand how hard it is to not resort to that when I’m frustrated or overwhelmed. It gets 100x worse when I’m tired.