Archives for category: Frustration
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Hate Isn’t a Good Look for You

March 27, 2018 //
3

Don’t hate. I mean it. What a huge start down the path of being the person you most want to be (probably). Just don’t fucking hate people. Don’t say hateful things. Don’t undertake hateful actions. Don’t enable hate. Don’t support hate. Don’t become the embodiment of hate through your words or commerce. Fuck. How god damned hard is that, really??

I’m rather angry this morning at the horrible way some obviously grown adults have been treating the Parkland survivors… over the choice to protest what those survivors see as the pivotal issue in the attack on their school. Let’s get past the rather obvious fact that we live in a country that says it values freedom of speech – if that were really the case, we’d all shut the fuck up and listen once in a while. (When was the last time you politely and earnestly listened to the entire monologue of an associate’s views without interrupting to object or counter them, and did so without a rebuttal?) What I’m most angry about is that, even in that freedom of speech context, there are actual grown ass adults attacking recently traumatized young people – because they are offended by the opinions being expressed (that are subjective, personal, and informed by recent violence)! What the fuck? When did we become monsters?

I just don’t have anything nice to say to someone who thinks their right to fondle a firearm takes a priority over comforting the victims of violence. That’s some clueless douche-baggery right there. That “right to bear arms”? Not a bigger deal that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Get some fucking perspective.

I take a deep breath. Pull up out of the slime of the depths of the internet. I finish my coffee quickly, still awash in anger – and there it is. The secret sauce of a great many of our most horrible human moments; our anger. I pause quietly and look at my own. It’s often these moments of disappointment with humanity generally, in which I come face-to-face with the things I am still working on myself. Anger is definitely one of those. Few things fuel shitty behavior and vile invective like impotent frustrated rage.

Another deep breath. Anger has a certain intoxicating visceral feel that surges like a drug through my bloodstream. People “high” on anger lose sight of what matters most to them. People suffering from acute anger poisoning aren’t just capable of killing – they become, also, quite capable of feeling righteous and justified in doing so. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” isn’t something a person reacting to anger still gives a crap about – at least not anyone else’s, and sometimes not even their own. That’s something to contemplate. Is your anger worth killing for? If you think so, how do you reconcile that with that other human being’s right to live their life?

It’s hard to even think about anger without becoming, at some point, angry. Weird. Well, frankly, I have issues. lol You know that; you’re reading this. I’m working on them, though, and even my relationship with anger gets thoroughly scrutinized. I can’t say I have what I consider a healthy relationship with anger – my own or anyone else’s. The experience of extreme anger or rage expressed by other people is highly likely to trigger my PTSD – not helpful, I promise you that. My own anger? I’m not “better than” anyone else; it’s capable of driving some really shitty behavior that I am not content to permit from myself. So. I put in the time and study and practice required to better myself, in some small measure, day-by-day, moment-by-moment, provocation-by-provocation – even on the internet. There are verbs involved. Right now, there’s also a book involved. It’s on my reading list.

Frankly, deep-diving emotion and working to develop and improve emotional intelligence, have seemed to be quite critical on this journey – but it is complicated work, and requires a great deal of practice. Worthwhile. Maybe even the entire purpose of existing as a human being is somehow tangled up in becoming emotionally intelligent, learning to balance emotion and reason, and learning to treat others truly well. I don’t know. I rarely ask the question “what is the meaning of life”. lol Not my question. Doesn’t need my answer.

I do need to begin again. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories anger, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Spring, Summer, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words

Choosing Practices That Work

March 21, 2018 //
2

I’m contentedly sipping my coffee this morning and anticipating the long weekend in the country. I’m even looking forward to the drive, which would seem strange if it weren’t for the weird new little practice I started practicing days or weeks ago (I don’t remember now, long enough to have already become a thing I do); I make a point of reminding myself why I’m using the car, before I start it up, before I pull out of the driveway or parking space, before I start driving anywhere at all.

My commute has been much improved, and seems to get continuously better, and I am, each time, less reactive, less annoyed, less angry, and less likely to arrive home feeling that I’ve basically just wasted those minutes of my life – or even aged myself further by way of added stress. 🙂 Pretty good outcome for what amounts to 3-5 minutes just talking things over with myself. lol

It’s a simple practice. I sit for a moment, and take a few deep cleansing breaths, and ask myself a question. “What’s the point of this trip in the car?” The first time or two, I stuck to old habits, and framed my answer as “getting from ___ to ___ by hh:mm”. This, unfortunately, wasn’t helpful for me; I have hang-ups about time and time management, and the focus on time resulted in a focus on the outcome itself, and resulted in an increase in both anxiety and aggression. I felt as if everyone was in my damned way, an impediment to my forward momentum and timely arrival. Nope. Not helpful at all. I switched things up a bit, and focused on other important qualities about driving places: enjoying the time, arriving safely, creating an overall safe and comfortable shared experience alongside my fellow travelers. No kidding. The first time I focused on the safe arrival aspect, I found myself amusing myself with “safety games” – could I make this particular drive safely, without aggravating myself or other drivers, and also fully 100% participate in our social contract by also following all the traffic control rules and laws? Making “enjoy the time” a goal in my commuting experience ended up taking a lot of pressure off me to get somewhere else to enjoy that time, and I stopped driving around with the implicit understanding that driving around is a shitty experience to be kept short, avoided, and endured, and started… enjoying the drive. It’s nice. Much improved.

I still get frustrated by all manner of ass-hattery and douche-baggery. No doubt. I’m incensed when entitled fuck-nuts decide the right-turn-only lane at a particular intersection is an ideal way to simply get around all of the rest of us, also going that direction on that road, also waiting at that light. Yep. Totally human. I even feel a certain smugness about not doing that douche-bag bullshit, I totally do. lol Because… fuck that guy. I’m better than that. Well… at least about stealing the right away at that intersection right there. (Still totally human, probably should avoid being smug, in general.) …But, I feel less aggravated than I did, and less likely to hit some breaking point that could result in real rage, which is a huge win.

It’s a simple enough practice. Doesn’t work at all if I don’t practice it (confirmed). Works pretty well when I do. 🙂 Your results, no doubt, may vary. It’s the way of things, isn’t it? What works for me, however profoundly, may not work for you. Try it out, find out for yourself, and either adopt it as a practice that works, or discontinue it as a practice that does not work for you. 😀 Of course, if it “isn’t working” the first time, it is a practice, so you’ll likely want to try it a few times… you know… practice it. Be sure it isn’t working, or find out that it does. 😀

It’s a new day. A good one for beginning again. A good day to practice what works. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Seriously? You Could Do Better

March 16, 2018 //
1

Couldn’t we all do better? A bit? Give that some thought. Are you really the person you most want to be? Every day?

I am feeling frustrated with humanity, generally, and it pivots on competing memes, the willful stupidity of human beings defending pet ideologies, and the unavoidable truth that every damned one of us has some pretty fucking hateful moments, and lugs around some pretty vile baggage. I’m mostly quite done with every damned body pointing at the other guy with criticism about hate, seemingly unaware that they, themselves, have some similarly hateful moments.

Fuck, people, look in the god damned mirror.

I’m not making this point unaware that I am, myself, quite human. On the contrary, I am frustrated and puzzled by some basic confounds in my own thinking. I am concerned about implicit biases I am likely wandering around with, that may inform my decision-making in a fairly stupid way. I worry that things I think I “know” are not well-grounded in fact, to the point that I am regularly seeking proof that I am wrong. (Because, frankly, finding out I am wrong is the only shot at correcting poor quality reasoning – I don’t give fuck-all for being right, and it isn’t helpful to “know” that I am, when it comes up.)

What’s specifically giving me metaphysical indigestion this morning is the head-on conflict between posts/memes/commentary suggesting that “gun control is not the answer –  be kind to lonely kids!” is The One True Way, and the other batch retorting “don’t suggest anyone else is responsible for violence except the sociopaths committing it – you could be encouraging vulnerable kids to become entangled with sociopaths!” because setting good boundaries is The One True Way. Fucking hell – are we all really that stupid? Is it not 100% entirely obvious that this is a false dichotomy? That the jigsaw puzzle of American violence is a tad more nuanced than that? Fuck your overly simplistic idiocy. So done with that kind of simple-minded horse-shit.

It matters how we treat people. It matters what we accept, as a culture, with regard to how people treat each other. It matters when we frame the discussion in terms of the value of one group of lives or another, or the worth of one individual or another. It matters how we talk about – and how we prosecute – violence. Yes, when we let domestic violence crimes go unnoticed, undiscussed, and unprosecuted, we build a culture in which some children grow up thinking their anger (an emotion, nothing more) has more value than the actual lives of others. We created that scenario as a culture, as a society. We deepen it when we devalue women, people of color, and other vulnerable populations. When we foster rape culture, and suggest in our institutions and laws, that how women dress or behave is somehow righteous justification for another human being’s lack of self-control over their use of sexual behaviors, we defend violence over “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. We are at fault for the culture that exists.

Does that mean we are also accountable, individually, for the individual acts of violence of other individuals? Nope. We are each responsible for our own actions… including those actions that foster a culture of violence. So. Yeah. It’s not us vs. them. It’s not as simple as a single choice between two clear options. It’s about actually fucking being aware of the consequences of our actions, and of our institutions and laws, and we are responsible for the society we create. We built this. Stop acting fucking surprised. Fucking fix it.

Fuck, I am so angry about this. Just do better, damn. How fucking hard is that?

What are you going to do to make this a better country to live in for everyone who lives in it? (Yes, including people who are incarcerated, people who are poor, people who are undocumented – have you read some of what they are put through? Every.Damned.Day. “Inhumane” doesn’t begin to describe it, and that’s really not okay.)

I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to do better. Just that. Something. Each day, today too, I am going to put my will and my actions toward being a somewhat better human being than I was yesterday. And again tomorrow. Then again the day after that. I will spend a lifetime working towards being the woman I most want to be, building the world I most want to live in. Tearing down the bullshit and baggage I learned growing up, or later on, or built myself. No excuses. I can do better.

It’s time to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories anger, Free Will, Frustration, grief, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

My Results Vary

March 8, 2018 //
0

Last night’s commute was an interesting test of my intent to continue and grow as a human being, and learn better skills for experiencing and expressing anger without doing harm, or degrading the quality of life or emotional experience of other beings. Yep. I think it can be done. I see other people doing it. So. Doable. 🙂 I figure my detestable commute is worthy territory for practice, too, because… people piss me off pretty reliably when all I want to do is drive home without bullshit. LOL

As I pulled out of the parking lot at the office, I reminded myself that the goal was to get home safely, skillfully, following traffic rules, remaining within the speed limit, and to do so without “being provoked” by the behavior of other drivers, who are definitely having their own experience. So far so good. Intentions set.

All was well a good portion of the drive, in spite of people just… yeah. Omg. Human beings are not at all at their best on their evening commute, driving in traffic at the end of the day. Everyone seems to be 100% entirely out for themselves without any regard whatsoever for the other human beings literally surrounding them. I pulled up to a stoplight along the way. I stopped. Cars behind me stopped. The empty lane the right, in this instance, in clearly marked in several locations (signage, on the pavement, a reminder literally hanging from the light pole, too) that this is “right turn only” and “traffic in right lane must turn right”. It’s a complicated intersection, but this point is made very clear. The large pick up who pulled up next to me and inched forward a bit at a time was in my periphery, but on my mind; this is a favorite spot for douchebags to attempt to get around waiting traffic for which they, themselves, are too good to endure along with the rest of us. Fuckheads. Yeah, this is a thing that pisses me off enormously. The light turned green, and I purposely, with intent, skill, and my full conscious attention, quickly accelerated to the speed limit and pulled ahead of the truck and through the intersection. Yep. He (I could see him) immediately pulled in behind me, cutting off the less aware/attentive/committed driver behind me. I drove on.

I let it go and drove on. He was still mad, and tail-gating me in his unnecessarily huge truck. Eventually, there was some distance between us, and a couple cars turned into that space. Then end of it, I figured. Nope. I stopped at a light with a left turn only signal – two lanes, the one on the right continuing, the one on the left turning left. Oh, you know where this goes, right? If you were reading along thinking “well, you’re just guessing that he was trying to get around the traffic, maybe he just didn’t see the right turn only, then saw it, and hurriedly pulled into the correct lane? That could happen… so human.” Sure, sure, only… there’s this; with no one in that left turn lane at the time I was waiting for that red light so I could continue? Yep. Who comes hauling ass up that left hand only turn lane? The big pick up. Same truck. He pulled past that line of cars, and even I caught myself thinking “well, finally, he’s turning…”. Nope. He not only didn’t turn, it wasn’t ever his intention to turn. As soon as the left turn light went green he pulled through the intersection around all the stopped traffic – it was only the left turn light that was green, and he took advantage of it. I was, admittedly, immediately enraged. Nothing much I could do about it, and I choked on my anger, struggling to both feel my feelings, and also to behave in the way I most want to do. It was fucking hard. I wanted to scream at him, and I wanted to do him real harm. For an instant, I was viscerally aware why I choose not to own a firearm.

I’m still angry about that guy’s shitty behavior, thinking about it this morning. For me, this is the sort of thing that is representative of the downhill slide of our national culture and society, generally. Entitled inconsiderate douche-baggery. Fuck that guy. Don’t be that guy.

Some distance down the road later, insisting with myself that I breathe deeply, calm myself, and stay focused on skillful safe driving, being attentive, and making “the game of life” about something other than winning at the expense of others, I’d calmed myself and moved on from all that. It was hard. Worthwhile, though, in the sense that I arrived home feeling comfortable in my own skin, not especially stressed out, and actually having already forgotten most of the stress of the commute within minutes of stopping the car. That feels pretty good. I’ll give it another go again today.

Today is a good day to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being, The Big 5

There’s Got to Be a Lesson Here

March 5, 2018 //
0

Friday was efficient. Purposeful. Carefully planned. Strictly and professionally executed to plan. Wrapped up neatly with a clear-headed, safe, and calm drive down the highway, arriving at my destination “on time” (meaning to say I got there when I said I would).

Saturday was beyond complete. Spent in the company of close friends and loved ones, the sort of assortment commonly called family by a great many people, it was a day of sunshine, of laughter, of heartfelt worship, of sharing, of celebration, of healing, of wonder, of joy, and of music. It was a fantastic fucking day all around.

Sometime in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I grabbed a nap, knowing I would be heading back up the highway in just a few hours. I woke and enjoyed being surrounded by warmth, good humor, and merriment before packing up the car to make the journey back to this place that I live. I had a good cup of coffee. I shared the morning sunshine. I cuddled dogs, and hugged friends, and held my Traveling Partner so so so close, for an endless moment of such intense love that I feel it still, even now.

What a perfectly lovely weekend!! I sip my Monday morning coffee soaking in the memories, smiling.

I’d kind of like to erase my memory of the drive back…but that’s not really how having a shitty memory actually works. Not quite. Being able to simply choose to erase a memory isn’t so easily done with wisdom, anyway; there’s something to learn here. It’s the hard bits that teach us the most. So.

The drive home sucked. lol It’s that simple. What can I learn from that? What can I learn from the juxtaposition of the deliciously loving weekend with that shit drive? Could I point the finger to having made the trip on less than ideal sleep? (Not really; I was feeling well-rested when I woke, and I was very-well-caffeinated when I started down the road.) Was it the weather? (Clear weather, dry pavement, sunny morning, partly cloudy – so, no.) The traffic? (Traffic was light, and generally moving at or faster than the posted speed, so… it’s hard to say it was the traffic.) Was it… the people? (Here’s where it gets complicated…) I had some of the most hair-raising experiences on this particular commute. I maintained a comfortable (for me) speed without much difficulty, and was generally in good humor and patient about moments of congestion near cities and towns, and I want very much to say it wasn’t the people… because… if it was…? I was one of those, too. Was it… me?

By the end of the drive, it is enough to say, I wasn’t just glad to have parked the car, and finish the journey, I was sort of feeling regretful that there would soon (this morning) be yet another requirement to get behind the wheel at all. :-\ (It was that bad, yeah.) I feel nervous and reluctant. I feel anxious in advance. I feel hesitant and insecure.

Fuck, that was a shitty drive. lol

That drive was also just a blip on life’s radar. Just a moment. A single journey from point to point, and completed demonstrably safely inasmuch as I am safely here, and no collisions, no tickets, nothing “really happened” that had any lingering obvious consequence on the participants of the day. I’m okay right now. I take a deep breath and let it go (again). Making myself mindful that it is behind me, and aware of how spectacular the weekend was in other ways. I think about those things, and make a point of thinking more about them than about the aggravations of the drive back. That’s what works.

A few minutes into this practice, and it becomes easier to acknowledge my own role in the drive back; I was feeling annoyed to be leaving what now feels like home to head to a place that doesn’t at all. To live a life that has begun to feel more lonely than solitary. I was feeling more energetic than enthusiastic about the drive, and that energy was more artificial (caffeine) than natural (mood). I felt a strong visceral sense of real frustration anytime my speed or flow of movement down the highway was impaired or constrained by another driver’s “shitty decision-making” – nearly always defining that as “getting in my way”, without taking any time to consider the scenario from their perspective, what they hoped to achieve, and what the purpose of their decision really was. I was taking shit exceedingly personally – which, by the way, makes for an incredibly crappy drive. Few things feel as irritatingly unpleasant as the perception of a hostile universe undermining my experience in the moment. Few things that feel that unpleasant are also so entirely and completely made up and “all in my head”… right?

There was one guy, one moment, one time out of my weekend driving which clearly was indeed “personal”, intentional, and an attack on my perceived self by another human being (definitely having his own experience) who – rather randomly and at great personal and community risk – slammed on his brakes on the highway, in the fast lane, at high-speed, immediately in front of me, while flipping me off, after I flashed my high beams at him as a request to move to the right hand lane when it was clear (to me) that I was closing in on him pretty fast, and he was “just camping out” in the passing lane with no traffic alongside him, ahead of him, or anywhere near him at all. I did so from many car lengths back. He waited to execute his potentially deadly maneuver until I had closed the distance to about 2 car lengths. When I moved to go around him (figuring slamming into him made a lot less sense) he whipped into that lane immediately ahead of me, still flipping me off. He did this twice more, accelerating, then slamming on his brakes, and blocking my ability to safely get past him. It was clearly personal for him. He was definitely having his own experience. That also happened on the trip down, not the trip back. When I think back on the drive home, there’s really nothing of significance to consider. Turns out, as it happens, my crappy experience yesterday may have been 100% purely entirely my own. I feel the looks of puzzlement and awareness try to form on my face at the same time; that angry man was likely having a shit drive, or a bad day, himself. It wasn’t anything more to do with me than my drive yesterday was really anything to do with anyone but me. Huh.

I laugh and finish my coffee. We covered this in the very beginning, I tell myself, with a smile and a shake of my head. It’s in The Four Agreements. It’s at the top of my reading list. lol

A new day. A new commute. And also – not new, or different, at all. Routine. Practices. I have another chance to be a better human being behind the wheel of my car. So do you. It’s a good day to begin again. 🙂

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories anger, Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Frustration, Logic & Reason, loneliness, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, The Big 5
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »